Former Hut 8 CEO To Lead Crypto Miner Fortitude

Former Hut 8 (NASDAQ: $HUT) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jaime Leverton has been appointed to lead cryptocurrency miner Fortitude.

Fortitude is focused on mining Zcash (CRYPTO: $ZEC) and is preparing to go public via a combination with HeartSciences (NASDAQ: $HSCS).

Leverton will take the helm of Fortitude on Sept. 21 of this year, succeeding Andrea Childs, who will become the company's chief operating officer (COO).

Leverton will remain CEO after Fortitude goes public. The combined company will adopt the Fortitude name and trade on Nasdaq (NASDAQ: $NDAQ) under the ticker symbol "TUDE."

Fortitude is expected to be publicly traded by year's end. The combined company will have an estimated value of about $400 million U.S.

Leverton most recently led institutional digital-asset manager ReserveOne. She served as CEO of Bitcoin (CRYPTO: $BTC) miner Hut 8 from 2020 to 2024.

At Hut 8, Leverton oversaw the company's merger with U.S. Bitcoin Corp. and its transition from a Canadian-listed miner to a U.S.-domiciled company.

She also helped Hut 8 pivot from Bitcoin mining to high-performance computing and data centre operations.

Fortitude mined 72,696 ZEC during the six months through June 30, about 28% of the network's production during that period. The company reported second-quarter revenue of $20.9 million U.S.

Fortitude currently operates more than 60 megawatts of power capacity across seven sites located in South Dakota, Nebraska, Texas, and New York State.

HUT stock has risen 159% over the last 12 months to trade at $97.75 U.S. per share.