Celsius planned to IPO as Ionic Digital but it’s not going well

—,
—by Protos Staff

Celsius, the now-defunct crypto lending Ponzi scheme that came to a crashing halt in June of 2022, is currently working its way out of bankruptcy.

Its plan is to IPO as Ionic Digital by 2025 but those plans look to be on hold following the announcement that the CEO has resigned, its board of directors has been reshuffled, and the auditor has quit.

All of this comes on the heels of a contract with cryptocurrency mining company Hut8 to expand Bitcoin mining operations for the company that’s supposed to go on for the next four years.

CEO is ‘pursuing new opportunities’

In an attempt at a quiet exit as executive leader of the company, CEO Matt Prusak stated, “After an incredible journey, I’ve decided to pursue new opportunities as my initial term as CEO of Ionic Digital concludes in mid-August.”

Prusak stated he’s “immensely proud of what [Ionic Digital has] accomplished and [is] confident in the company’s bright future.”

It’s unclear what it accomplished outside of signing a contract with Hut8, a bitcoin miner that has seen its stock price on the Toronto stock exchange tumble from all-time highs of ~CA$96 in 2021 to ~CA$17 today.

Read more: Celsius has finally shut down its phone app

Meanwhile, two members of the board of directors, Asher Genot who is CEO of Hut8, and Max Holmes, a professor at NYU, have been replaced by Mac Gardner, chairman of the board of Spirit Airlines, and Scott N. Flanders, the former CEO of Playboy. It’s uncertain whether or not their previous experience will help Ionic Digital reach its ultimate goal of going public next year.

Ionic Digital’s auditor, RSM US, stated that it would not be able to continue serving as the company’s auditor due to its strategic decision to no longer audit publicly traded digital asset mining companies. RSM says its decision “was not a result of any disagreements with the company on accounting principles, practices, financial statement disclosure, or auditing scope or procedure.”

These changes occurring simultaneously doesn’t bode well for the new bitcoin mining company, but Ionic Digital is insisting that it’s still pursuing the same goals as before and hasn’t changed the timeline for going public — at least not yet.

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Correction 13:30 UTC, Aug 13: Corrected piece to clarify that RSM has ceased audits of publicly traded digital asset mining companies, not, as originally reported, all companies in the crypto sector.