Simply put
- Fortitude has brought online a 12-megawatt mining facility in Grand Island, Nebraska, increasing its power portfolio to more than 60 MW.
- The company expects that reduced power costs and new mining equipment will allow sites to reduce the direct cash costs of mining Zcash.
- The announcement follows Fortitude’s planned merger with Heart Sciences, which would take the company public.
Zcash mining company Fortitude has brought online a 12-megawatt facility in Grand Island, Nebraska, completing its first greenfield data center and expanding its power portfolio to more than 60 megawatts across seven sites.
In an announcement Tuesday, the company, owned by Digital Currency Group, said its first greenfield facility has completed construction and electrical testing and is ready for commercial operation. This milestone comes in advance of Fortitude’s planned public listing through its previously announced business combination with publicly traded medical technology company Heart Sciences (NASDAQ: HSCS).
“Our power strategy is owned and operated, and that discipline underpins our vertically integrated Zcash strategy and our venture mining platform,” said CEO Andrea Childs. decryption. “Owning the assets, rather than leasing capacity from someone with incentives opposite to ours, is intended to give us a degree of flexibility that I don’t think most operators have.”
Fortitude said the facility is expected to reduce the direct cash cost of mining Zcash from about $70 per coin to about $40 per coin, assuming successful deployment and stable power, network and market conditions. For reference, Zcash is currently trading at $489 per coin and has a market cap of $8 billion.
The company said the projected savings will come from lower cost owned power and more efficient next-generation mining hardware.
The facility plans to purchase electricity at approximately $0.045 per kilowatt-hour. It is located between two solar farms and next to a substation with excess capacity, allowing it to operate as an interruptible load that can reduce electricity consumption during peak demand periods.
Founded in January 2025, Fortitude emerged from the mining arm of Foundry’s Digital Currency Group to mine Bitcoin and other proof-of-work cryptocurrencies through a so-called venture mining strategy. The company said it would reinvest mining profits into new equipment and land acquisitions as it expands its infrastructure footprint.
“In our view, Zcash today is at a completely different stage than Bitcoin. Our view is that the mining economy for Bitcoin is mature and crowded compared to Zcash,” Childs added. “We believe that Zcash’s time is now. Our vertically integrated structure, combined with our long-term beliefs and history of asset mining, positions us to benefit from Zcash’s continued growth and importance in the future of the financial system.”
The project comes as cryptocurrency miners compete to secure low-cost power, increasing demand from AI data centers and intensifying competition for power and suitable land.
While data centers face increased scrutiny on power and water demands, Grand Island officials said Fortitude’s mining facility is designed to operate as a flexible grid resource with less impact on the surrounding area.
“Competition for power is increasing, but in our view that is not slowing our growth,” Childs said. “By developing and owning our own site, we are seeking to directly control the setting of our power costs rather than relying on a third-party vendor.”
