Fortitude Brings 12 MW Zcash Mine Online in Nebraska

Fortitude brought a 12-megawatt Zcash mining facility in Grand Island, Nebraska, online on Tuesday, raising its owned power portfolio to more than 60 megawatts across seven sites. The company projects the new site could lower its direct cash cost of mining Zcash from roughly $70 to about $40 per coin, contingent on full deployment of equipment and stable power, network and market conditions.

The Grand Island center is Fortitude’s first greenfield data center. Construction and electrical testing are complete and the facility is ready for commercial operations, the company reported.

Fortitude said the site will purchase electricity at about $0.045 per kilowatt-hour. The center is located between two solar generation facilities and adjacent to a substation with spare capacity, enabling it to operate as an interruptible load that can reduce consumption during peak demand periods.

The company attributed the expected savings to lower-cost owned power and more efficient next-generation mining hardware. Fortitude said it will reinvest mining proceeds into additional equipment and acquisitions as it expands its infrastructure footprint.

Launched in January 2025 from Digital Currency Group’s Foundry division, Fortitude pursues a vertically integrated strategy to mine proof-of-work cryptocurrencies under what it describes as a venture mining model. The firm emphasized ownership and operation of power assets rather than leasing third-party capacity.

Andrea Childs, Fortitude’s chief executive, framed asset ownership as a source of operational flexibility: “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.” She contrasted Zcash with Bitcoin, saying: “In our view, Zcash today is at a completely different stage than Bitcoin. Bitcoin’s mining economics are mature and crowded when compared to Zcash,” and that Fortitude is positioned to benefit from Zcash’s development.

Fortitude’s announcement comes amid rising competition for low-cost electricity from data centers serving artificial intelligence workloads. Grand Island officials said the facility was designed to operate as a flexible grid resource while limiting effects on the local community.

The company is preparing to go public through a planned business combination with HeartSciences (Nasdaq: HSCS), which Fortitude says will provide capital for further expansion. At the time of the announcement, Zcash traded near $489 per coin with an approximate $8 billion market valuation.