Institutional Zcash miner Fortitude is significantly expanding its mining operations after signing an agreement with mining titan Bitmain to purchase 9,000 Antminer Z15 Pro ASIC miners, one of the industry's leading machines for the Equihash algorithm.
According to the company, the new hardware is expected to add roughly 7.56 GSol/s of Equihash hashrate once fully deployed. This is, of course, one of the largest publicly disclosed investments in Zcash mining infrastructure this year.
The miners will be shipped in two batches, with 3,000 units scheduled for delivery in October and the remaining 6,000 in November.
The expansion comes as Fortitude continues to position itself as one of the largest dedicated participants in the Zcash ecosystem. During the first half of 2026, the company said it mined 72,696 ZEC, representing about 28% of total network production over that period.
The additional mining capacity will be deployed across Fortitude's more than 60 MW of contracted power infrastructure spanning seven sites in South Dakota, Texas, and other states.
Earlier, the company announced its plan to enter public markets through a proposed business combination with HeartSciences. If completed, the combined company is expected to trade on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the TUDE ticker.
Zcash ecosystem continues to evolve
The mining expansion comes during an active period for the broader Zcash ecosystem. Earlier this year, Zcash developers unveiled a roadmap aimed at making the network fully post-quantum over the coming months.
Meanwhile, the Zcash Foundation has continued strengthening the network's infrastructure following organizational changes earlier this year.
The Foundation reaffirmed that Zcash remains a decentralized protocol supported by multiple independent contributors. At the same time, it is advancing the development of the Zebra node software ahead of Network Upgrade 7.
Dan Burgin
U.Today Editorial Team
