Zcash Miner Fortitude’s Nasdaq Listing Shows Crypto Is Still Finding Side Doors Into Public Markets
Zcash miner Fortitude Mining Holdings plans to list on Nasdaq through a reverse merger with HeartSciences, a medical tech company. Odd pairing. Still, I would not dismiss it as random dealmaking. When the clean public-market route is too slow, too expensive, or basically closed, crypto companies start looking for side doors.
Under the announced all-stock deal, Fortitude’s management would run the combined company. The business would keep the Fortitude name and trade on Nasdaq under the ticker TUDE, if regulators approve it. HeartSciences shareholders would keep a minority stake. HeartSciences CEO Andrew Simpson said the deal frees the company from “the constant cycle of raising capital” and gives shareholders what he views as the best available path. In plain English: Fortitude gets a public listing by merging into a company already sitting on Nasdaq. This is not new territory. Core Scientific listed through a SPAC in 2022. Cipher Mining also used a SPAC deal. Same destination, different vehicle.
HeartSciences (HSCS) rose as much as 91% on Tuesday after the news, though the underlying company has not exactly been cruising. Its fiscal 2025 net loss widened to $8.77 million from $6.61 million a year earlier, and commercial revenue was still small. It did make product progress, launching the MyoVista Insights software platform in fiscal 2025. Fortitude has disclosed less about its own finances. It reported annualized Zcash ($ZEC) production of 157,000 as of May 31. At publication time, $ZEC traded near $413, with a market cap of $6.92 billion. My take: that production figure is the number investors will circle first, not the medical-tech backstory.
A public Zcash miner is not just another public Bitcoin miner. That is the point. Bitcoin mining companies have been trading in public markets for years, but Zcash is smaller, more niche, and harder to explain to a risk committee. Privacy coins sit in a tense corner of crypto. Some investors like the technology. Regulators tend to squint at it. Why does this matter? Because Fortitude would give public-market investors exposure beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum through a regular brokerage account, without asking them to hold the coin directly. I would not call that a revolution. It is still a signal.
Most guides to crypto public listings focus on IPOs and ETFs. That is only half right. The deal also says plenty about how crypto firms are reaching public markets when the front door is inconvenient. Traditional IPOs take time and money, and crypto companies still face SEC and CFTC scrutiny. A reverse merger through a struggling medical tech company is not elegant. It may still work. If Fortitude gets through the process, other private crypto firms may study the same route instead of waiting for ideal IPO conditions.
Counter to the usual advice, a messy listing path can sometimes be the more practical one. Not better. Just more available. A Fortitude listing could bring smaller, more specialized crypto businesses into public markets, instead of leaving investors mostly with exchanges, large miners, and ETFs. Interest rates matter here too. If financing stays expensive, or tightens after the Fed’s next moves, reverse mergers may look more realistic than sitting around for a clean IPO window. Is this a shortcut? Yes. Is every shortcut reckless? No.
What this means
Fortitude’s planned Nasdaq listing shows that crypto mining companies still want public capital, and not only for Bitcoin mining. For investors, TUDE would be a narrower bet: Zcash mining and privacy coin economics, plus the operating risks tied to both. That is specific exposure. It is also messier. I’ll be honest: the first stretch of trading after the deal closes may matter more than the announcement itself, because other private Zcash or privacy coin miners could treat TUDE as a test case.
The regulatory side deserves attention. This deal avoids a direct IPO, but it does not avoid crypto oversight. Yes, that sounds like a contradiction after all this talk about side doors. It is not. A reverse merger can change the path to market without changing the industry’s basic regulatory problem. Any new SEC guidance on reverse mergers involving digital asset companies could affect TUDE after listing, especially if the company later tries to raise more capital. $ZEC matters too. If it stays above $400 for longer than a quick spike, investors may take Fortitude’s production numbers more seriously. The next FOMC meeting on July 31 could also shift risk appetite across crypto, including how investors price new listings like this one.