DCG's Zcash miner powers up its first ground-up site

Nebraska facility cuts Zcash mining costs nearly in half

@FortitudeCrypto has brought a 12 MW mining facility in Grand Island, Nebraska, online, completing its first greenfield data center and pushing its contracted power portfolio to more than 60 MW across seven locations in four states. The site is @DCGco's latest step in building out a vertically integrated $ZEC mining operation through its subsidiary, which emerged from Digital Currency Group's mining division at Foundry in January 2025.

Fortitude expects the site to cut its direct cash mining cost to around $40 from roughly $70 per ZEC. That reduction is driven in large part by power priced at about $0.045 per kilowatt-hour, with the facility located between two solar generation facilities and next to a substation with excess capacity, allowing it to operate as an interruptible load that can reduce electricity consumption during periods of peak demand.

The move comes at a time when cryptocurrency miners are under increased pressure to source affordable electricity, due to heightened demand from both digital asset mines and AI-focused data centers. Fortitude's approach of owning rather than leasing capacity is central to its strategy. As CEO Andrea Childs put it: "Owning the asset rather than leasing capacity from someone whose incentives run opposite to ours is intended to give us a degree of flexibility that we believe few operators have."

Nasdaq listing through HeartSciences merger adds a public market dimension

The Nebraska milestone lands as Fortitude prepares to go public. Fortitude Mining Holdings and HeartSciences have agreed to an all-stock business combination that would bring a DCG-owned $ZEC mining platform to the Nasdaq Capital Market under the proposed ticker TUDE. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2026, subject to customary closing conditions, including approval by HeartSciences shareholders. DCG is expected to own approximately 95% of the combined company at closing on a fully diluted basis.

Childs previously said the merger with HeartSciences is intended to fund expansion of its mining operations and owned power portfolio, not to transform it into a crypto accumulation company. On the choice of $ZEC over $BTC, she was direct: "In our view, Zcash today is at a completely different stage than Bitcoin. Our perspective is that Bitcoin's mining economics are mature and crowded when compared to Zcash."

Fortitude began mining $ZEC in 2019 and has scaled annualized production to 157,000 $ZEC, or about 366 $ZEC per day, as of May 31, 2026. The company generated approximately $90 million in fiscal 2025 gross revenue and $20 million in adjusted EBITDA on a debt-free balance sheet.

Sources:
Decrypt: Zcash Miner Fortitude Powers Up Nebraska Facility as It Eyes Public Listing
The Block: Barry Silbert-backed Zcash miner Fortitude brings Nebraska facility online
BusinessWire: Fortitude and HeartSciences Announce Business Combination