Bitcoin mining and AI infrastructure firm Ionic Digital has gone public on the Nasdaq Global Select Market through a direct listing.

The company’s Class A common stock began trading on July 28 under the ticker “IOND,” completing a listing process first announced last year.

Unlike a traditional initial public offering, the direct listing did not involve Ionic selling any new shares, meaning the company received no proceeds from the transaction.

Nasdaq set a reference price of $53 per share. Ionic opened at $50 before closing its first day at $62.90, an increase of almost 26 percent from the opening price. The closing price gave the company a market capitalization of approximately $2.8 billion.

“Today marks a defining moment in Ionic Digital’s journey as we complete our listing on Nasdaq,” said Andy Stewart, CEO of Ionic Digital.

Stewart said the listing would create liquidity for Ionic’s shareholders as the company continues its transition towards high-performance computing (HPC) and AI infrastructure.

Ionic was formed in 2024 through the acquisition of the mining assets of Celsius Mining following the bankruptcy of parent company Celsius Network. Around 37 million Ionic shares were subsequently distributed to Celsius creditors.

Ahead of the listing, Ionic secured a $400 million equity investment from a group including Attestor, Oaktree Capital Management, Sachem Head Capital Management, Citadel, and Weiss Asset Management. The June transaction valued the company at $2bn before the new investment.

Ionic operates several Bitcoin mining facilities in West Texas but has increasingly shifted its attention towards data center infrastructure for AI and HPC workloads.

The company has agreed to lease its 234MW Cedarvale facility in Ward County, Texas, to AI cloud provider Nscale. The ten-year agreement is expected to generate approximately $1.95bn in contracted revenue, with the site set to support Nscale’s infrastructure agreement with Microsoft.

Nscale has also contracted for another 89MW at the property if the additional capacity becomes available. Ionic is seeking regulatory and grid approval to expand the campus to as much as 700MW by the end of 2027.

Ionic expects to generate between $190 million and $195m in revenue during 2026, with between 90 and 92 percent forecast to come from digital infrastructure leasing.