Cypherpunk Buys $33M Zcash Mining Fleet From Winklevoss Affiliates
Cypherpunk Technologies has acquired a fleet of Zcash mining machines from Winklevoss-affiliated entities for $33.3 million in stock, expanding the digital-asset treasury company into cryptocurrency production as competition for the privacy-focused token intensifies.
The fleet consists of Bitmain Antminer Z15 Pro machines delivering about 4.2 gigasolutions per second (GH/s) of computing power, or roughly 18% of the Zcash network’s current hashrate, Cypherpunk said Tuesday. The machines are already operating at third-party hosting sites in the US.
Cypherpunk described the equipment as the world’s largest active Zcash mining fleet. That claim is based on currently deployed computing power and may change as competitors add machines or the network hashrate fluctuates.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company acquired the equipment and associated hosting contracts from Moria Mining LLC and Winklevoss Treasury Investments LLC. It did not acquire the data centers or power infrastructure supporting the machines.
Cypherpunk paid by issuing Winklevoss Treasury a pre-funded warrant covering 43.29 million common shares, valuing the stock at 77 cents apiece. The warrant carries a nominal exercise price of 0.1 cent per share, according to a regulatory filing.
The transaction is a related-party deal. Winklevoss Treasury already beneficially owns 19.9% of Cypherpunk and has the right to appoint two directors, Will McEvoy and Khing Oei. Cypherpunk said its nominating and corporate-governance committee approved the purchase.
Exercise of the warrant is initially capped to prevent Winklevoss Treasury’s ownership from exceeding 19.99%. Cypherpunk must seek shareholder approval before more than about 5.38 million of the underlying shares can be issued, reflecting Nasdaq restrictions on equity issuance.
Cypherpunk shares rose 3.5% to 72.99 cents in premarket trading at 7:58 a.m. in New York. The stock had gained 9.5% in Monday’s regular session but remains below Nasdaq’s $1 minimum bid-price requirement.
The purchase changes Cypherpunk’s exposure to Zcash. Until now, its strategy had centered largely on buying and holding the token, known as ZEC, and investing in privacy-related technology. Mining gives the company a continuing source of newly issued coins, while also exposing it to electricity, hosting, equipment-performance and network-difficulty risks.
Cypherpunk held 323,394.38 ZEC, or about 1.92% of circulating supply, at the time of the announcement. It has set a goal of accumulating 5% of supply. About 43,800 ZEC is awarded to miners each month, according to the company’s announcement.
The actual volume produced by Cypherpunk will depend on uptime and changes in total network computing power. Additional miners joining the network would reduce the company’s share of rewards unless it adds capacity.
Cypherpunk appointed Kevin Zhang as head of mining to oversee the operation. Zhang previously served as senior vice president of mining strategy at Foundry, a Digital Currency Group subsidiary, where he helped develop mining services and the Foundry USA Bitcoin mining pool. DCG launched Fortitude in January 2025 by spinning out Foundry’s self-mining business.
Fortitude is now pursuing a public listing of its own through an all-stock merger with Nasdaq-listed HeartSciences Inc. The transaction, announced in June, is expected to close in the second half of 2026, subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals.
Fortitude began mining Zcash in 2019 and said its annualized production had reached about 157,000 ZEC, or 366 coins a day, as of May 31. Unlike Cypherpunk’s hosted-machine model, Fortitude pairs mining equipment with an owned portfolio of more than 60 megawatts across seven US sites.
Zcash's network data shows that FoundryUSA's Zcash mining power has consistently been running at around 3.2 GH/s, which is believed to come predominantly from Fortitude given the entites belong to the same parent group.
However, Fortitude has also ordered 9,000 Z15 Pro machines from Bitmain for about $31.5 million. Those units are scheduled for delivery in October and November and are expected to add approximately 7.56 GSol/s of capacity—more than Cypherpunk’s newly acquired fleet—if they are delivered and deployed as planned. That expansion could reshape the ranking of the largest Zcash miners.
Cypherpunk was formerly biotechnology developer Leap Therapeutics. It adopted its current name and Zcash strategy after a $58.9 million private placement led by Winklevoss Capital in 2025. Its cancer-drug operations remain housed in a subsidiary.
