Fortitude Mining secures 9,000 Antminer Z15 Pro units in $31.5M Zcash mining bet

Fortitude Mining just dropped $31.5 million on Zcash mining hardware. The Digital Currency Group subsidiary signed an agreement with Bitmain to purchase 9,000 Antminer Z15 Pro units at $3,499 per machine, a deal that positions the company as one of the most aggressively expanding miners in the privacy coin space. Zcash has staged a dramatic comeback, with trailing twelve-month returns exceeding 1,000% as of mid-June 2026. Fortitude is betting that run has legs. The hardware and the math The Antminer Z15 Pro is Bitmain’s latest Equihash miner, offering a hashrate of 840 KSol/s with energy efficiency rated at 3.31 J/KSol. When Bitmain launched the unit in May 2026, the sticker price was $4,999. Fortitude negotiated each unit down to $3,499, saving roughly $1,500 per machine. Across 9,000 units, that’s a $13.5 million discount from list price. As of May 31, 2026, Fortitude was already mining at an annualized rate of 157,000 ZEC, which works out to about 366 ZEC per day. With ZEC trading between $460 and $500 in June 2026, that daily output translates to roughly $168K to $183K in revenue per day before costs. Cutting costs in Nebraska Fortitude energized a new self-built 12 MW facility...