The Bitcoin mining scene just welcomed its newest public player. Ionic Digital (ticker IOND) closed its first Nasdaq session at $62.90 on July 28, a 25.8% surge from the $50 opening price set minutes earlier — and an 18.7% premium to Nasdaq's $53 reference level.
The debut marks the public-market endpoint for one of the more unusual listings to emerge from Celsius's collapse. Ionic inherited Celsius's mining fleet when the lender's restructuring wrapped, and roughly 37 million of the 44.9 million Class A shares now outstanding were distributed to Celsius creditors through court-approved reorganization. The closing print values the combined Bitcoin miner and AI infrastructure operator near $2.83 billion.
Nasdaq debut opened below reference, then reversed
Trading officially began at 11:58:52 a.m. ET on July 28, when a 149,252-share opening cross set IOND at $50 — about 5.7% under Nasdaq's $53 reference price. Sellers had a brief window, but momentum reversed in the regular session: the stock recovered, broke back above the reference level, and closed at $62.90, finishing 18.7% above the reference print.
After-hours data showed the share price slipping to $58.80, a 6.5% drop from the regular-session close. Ionic itself had not issued a public statement explaining the move as of Tuesday evening.
Bitcoin mining meets AI infrastructure
Ionic is the latest in a growing roster of Celsius-spinoff assets that pivoted from a pure mining story to a dual-mining-and-compute one. The new flotation values the business at roughly $2.83 billion on 44.9 million shares outstanding — calculated after the conversion of Series A preferred stock and excluding any potential dilution from warrants, restricted stock units, or future issuances.
The dual-thesis pitch leaves Ionic exposed to two distinct structural trends at once. On the Bitcoin side, the company holds the hashrate that came out of the Celsius bankruptcy; on the AI side, it inherits the empty power capacity that mining operators across North America have been repurposing into GPU-capable data-center space.
Broader market positioning through the session reflected a defensive tone ahead of the Federal Reserve's interest-rate decision the following day — a theme that also weighed on spot Bitcoin ETF flows and pulled Bitcoin prices back below $64,000 in parallel trading. Crypto-linked brokerage equities were similarly soft, with Robinhood extending its July decline ahead of its own Q2 print.
What it means for creditors and the legacy of Celsius
The successful Nasdaq cross leaves Celsius creditors with their first liquid marks on Ionic paper since distribution. Until now, those roughly 37 million shares lived in illiquid, hold-period equity. The opening of public trading converts that paper into a tradable, markable asset — even if the after-hours decline suggests early-book builders are already taking profit.
The combined Celsius-creditor exposure and the Bitcoin-mining-plus-AI-infra narrative make IOND one of the more observable post-restructuring equity stories to track into H2. Watch for liquidity clustering around the $50 reference and $62.90 close in early sessions, with the next milestone likely tied to the company's first quarterly report under the new listing.
