Fortitude Mining Holdings and HeartSciences announced a definitive merger agreement that will bring the Zcash-focused mining platform to the public markets. This all-stock move should wrap up by late 2026. The new company will stick with the Fortitude brand, trade on Nasdaq as “TUDE,” and Andrea Childs will stay in charge as CEO.
Fortitude Mining’s Venture model
Fortitude is currently fully owned by DCG and operates as a vertically integrated platform for mining digital assets, with a primary focus on Zcash. They use a “venture mining” model that essentially involves hunting for high-conviction, early-stage “Proof-of-Work” (PoW) projects and pouring in both their capital and operational know-how to help them reach their full potential.
Zcash itself is a privacy-focused asset that launched back in 2016. It’s built on the Bitcoin codebase and keeps that same 21 million supply limit, but it adds some serious privacy technology on top.
Fortitude kicked off its ZEC mining operations in 2019, and as of May 31, 2026, they have ramped up their annualized production to hit 157,000 ZEC (approximately 366 ZEC per day). Zcash has delivered a trailing twelve-month return of approximately 1,000 percent as of June 15, 2026.
The deal structure and strategic rationale
Per the merger agreement, DCG is set to hold about 95 percent of the company once things wrap up on a fully diluted basis. Andrew Simpson, the CEO of HeartSciences, is sticking around to run the healthcare business unit after closing, but the Fortitude management team will be calling the shots on the operational side.
This deal basically hands Fortitude the keys to the public markets, which means they can really step on the gas with their venture mining setup and keep chasing down those high-potential opportunities in the PoW ecosystem.
Barry Silbert, CEO of DCG, said: “Zcash combines Bitcoin’s scarcity and Proof-of-Work discipline with privacy and security properties that we expect will matter more as financial systems become increasingly digital.”
