Zcash miner Fortitude Mining Holdings has announced the appointment of former Hut 8 chief executive Jaime Leverton as its CEO.

Leverton’s appointment took effect on September 21, succeeding Andrea Childs, who moved to the chief operating officer role.

A cryptocurrency with optional privacy features, Zcash (ZEC) offers features such as “shielded” transactions that can conceal the sender, recipient, and payment amount, while it also supports publicly visible transactions.

Leverton most recently led institutional digital asset management company ReserveOne. During her time at Hut 8, the company completed its merger with US Bitcoin Corp and announced its agreement to acquire TeraGo’s cloud and colocation business. She left Hut 8 in February 2024.

Fortitude, which is wholly owned by Digital Currency Group, is pursuing a proposed business combination with Nasdaq-listed medical technology company HeartSciences.

Leverton is expected to remain CEO of the combined company, which would operate under the Fortitude brand and trade under the ticker TUDE, subject to Nasdaq approval. The deal is expected to close in Q4 2026, subject to closing conditions including HeartSciences shareholder approval.

The appointment follows Fortitude’s completed acquisition of a 12.5MW facility in Prosser, Nebraska, announced on August 4. The property and improvements were priced at $6.25 million, with approximately $4.7 million of new cash required at closing after credits and prior power deposits.

The purchase included the land, building and an on-site 67kV substation. Fortitude said the facility was generating revenue at closing and estimated its stabilized power cost at approximately $0.045 per kWh.

Prosser is Fortitude’s third Nebraska site, alongside Grand Island and Aurora. The company has more than 60MW of contracted power capacity across seven sites in South Dakota, Nebraska, Texas and New York.

For the quarter ended June 30, Fortitude reported $20.9 million in revenue and adjusted EBITDA of $8.5 million, having mined approximately 33,646 ZEC, the native cryptocurrency of the Zcash network.

More recently, on October 5, Fortitude announced a non-binding commitment to purchase up to $100 million worth of Bitmain’s next-generation Zcash mining equipment. The proposed purchase remains subject to a binding agreement once final specifications and pricing are released, with equipment expected to start shipping in Q2 2027.