Ionic Digital, the bitcoin miner created from the wreckage of Celsius Network, closed its first Nasdaq session 26% above its opening price at $62.90, valuing the company at roughly $2.8 billion in the largest US direct listing since 2021. The shares opened at $50, 5.7% below Nasdaq’s $53 reference price, then reversed course during the session and finished 18.7% above that reference level. Nasdaq opened trading in IOND at 11:58 a.m. Eastern through a cross involving 149,252 shares. In after-hours trading the stock gave back some of the gain, falling 6.5% to $58.80.
The valuation rests on about 44.9 million Class A shares outstanding after the conversion of Ionic’s Series A preferred stock, according to its registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The figure excludes potential dilution from warrants, restricted stock units and future issuances. IPO research firm Renaissance Capital had valued the company at $2.4 billion at the $53 reference price, which would still have made it the largest US direct listing in five years.
From Celsius creditors to public shareholders
Ionic Digital was created in January 2024 to acquire bitcoin mining assets and selected liabilities from Celsius Mining. The transfer was part of the restructuring plan approved by the US Bankruptcy Court in November 2023, closing out the Chapter 11 case of the crypto lender that collapsed in 2022 after freezing customer withdrawals. Under that plan, Ionic issued roughly 37 million Class A shares to Celsius creditors, who became the company’s core shareholder base.
For creditors who waited more than three years for recovery, the debut converts an illiquid bankruptcy claim into a tradable security. At the closing price, those 37 million shares were worth about $2.3 billion, a recovery few could price when the lender’s hole was first measured in billions of dollars.
Mining fades, AI infrastructure takes over
Ionic describes itself as a bitcoin miner and AI infrastructure operator, but the mining side is shrinking fast. In its most recent reported quarter, the company recorded $44 million in digital infrastructure leasing revenue while bitcoin mining revenue fell 82% year over year to $7.4 million. It mined 95.7 BTC and held 2,815.6 BTC in treasury as of March 31. At current prices that treasury is worth roughly $236 million, a rounding error against the $2.8 billion equity value.
The pivot is physical. Ionic decommissioned mining operations at its Ward County, Texas facility in December and committed the site’s 234 megawatts of power capacity to Nscale, an AI cloud provider, under a 126-month lease agreement carrying $1.95 billion in contracted revenue. The deal follows a pattern now common across the mining sector: convert cheap power contracts and industrial sites into long-term leases for AI compute, where demand from hyperscalers and model labs has outstripped grid supply. Miners hold one of the scarcest assets in the AI buildout, energized power at scale, and investors have rewarded those who redeploy it. Competitors have signed similar deals across Texas, Alberta and the Pacific Northwest over the past 18 months, and equity markets have consistently rerated the converters faster than the pure miners.
Why a direct listing
Rather than a traditional IPO with underwriters and a fresh capital raise, Ionic used a direct listing, letting existing shareholders sell or hold at a market-determined price from day one. The choice fits the company’s origin. Its equity was born in bankruptcy court, distributed to creditors, not raised from venture investors. An IPO would have forced a pricing negotiation on shares whose holders never bought them in the first place.
The route also matters for the broader crypto industry. Celsius was one of the most damaging collapses of the 2022 bear market, and its remnant now trading above $2.8 billion on Nasdaq closes a loop that began with frozen withdrawals and a courtroom. Other restructured crypto estates, including the creditors of FTX and Mt. Gox, have distributed claims in kind; Ionic shows what a listed exit looks like when the surviving asset is productive infrastructure rather than a pile of tokens.
Context and risks
The debut lands in a strong market for crypto-adjacent equities. Bitcoin has recovered to the mid-$80,000s, US spot bitcoin ETFs turned net positive for 2026 with a $2.4 billion weekly inflow, and miners with AI conversion stories have commanded premium valuations all year. Ionic offers both narratives in one ticker, which helps explain the first-day bid.
Risks are visible in the filing. The revenue mix flipped within a single year, from mining to leasing, and the mining business that remains is small. The direct listing raised no fresh capital, so any expansion of AI capacity depends on cash flow, debt or future share sales, each of which could dilute the creditor-turned-shareholder base. The 126-month Nscale lease locks in revenue but also locks the company to a single counterparty for more than a decade, with no disclosed option to reprice if power or compute markets shift. The 82% mining revenue decline also means the company must execute the data center buildout on schedule or watch its only growing line of business stall. And the after-hours fade to $58.80 shows some investors banked the pop immediately rather than treating day one as a floor.
Still, the first session gave former Celsius creditors the outcome they waited years for: a liquid market at a valuation few predicted when the lender froze withdrawals in 2022. Whether the AI infrastructure story justifies the price is now a question for quarterly filings rather than bankruptcy judges.