Ionic Digital, a new bitcoin (BTC) mining company, is buying bankrupt lender Celsius' mining assets and aiming to become one of the top miners in North America.

Ionic will acquire all of Celsius' mining assets as part of the emergence of the bankrupt lender from Chapter 11. The assets include about 87 megawatts (MW) of self-mining capacity, 142MW of hosted bitcoin mining at third-party sites and the Cedarvale site, which is in development to reach a capacity of 240MW, the company said in a statement on Thursday.

Ionic has about 6 exahash per second (EH/s) of mining power operational and expects to achieve 12.7 exahash per second (EH/s) once its fleets are fully operational within this year, a company spokesperson told CoinDesk.

The new company expects to go public in the coming months and has filed Form-10 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Jan. 26 — a first step towards the listing, according to an emailed statement from Ionic. Celsius creditors will be the new company's shareholders, who will own equity in the form of common stock.

Ahead of bitcoin halving event this year, which will see mining rewards cut by half, Ionic isn't the only new mining company vying to go public. Most recently, bitcoin financial services firm Swan Bitcoin unveiled that its newly formed mining business unit expects to go public within the next 12 months.

"Our team is well-prepared to deal with the growing competition in mining, using our flexibility and strong financial backing to our advantage," Ionic said.

Hut 8 (HUT), which merged with US Bitcoin Corp. (USBTC), will provide mining management services for the new company in exchange for a fee of more than $20 million per year, as well as restricted stock and incentive equity.

Matt Prusak, former chief commercial officer of Hut 8 and USBTC, will be the CEO of Ionic. Hut 8's President, Asher Genoot, will also serve on the board of directors of the new company.

"With our substantial mining fleet and infrastructure managed in our partnership with Hut 8, seasoned leadership team, and strategic vision, Ionic Digital is ready to make an impact as a leading bitcoin miner," Prusak said.

Celsius Bitcoin Mining

Aoyon Ashraf

Aoyon Ashraf is CoinDesk's managing editor for Breaking News. He spent almost a decade at Bloomberg covering equities, commodities and tech. Prior to that, he spent several years on the sellside, financing small-cap companies. Aoyon graduated from University of Toronto with a degree in mining engineering. He holds ETH and BTC, as well as ALGO, ADA, SOL, OP and some other altcoins which are below CoinDesk's disclosure threshold of $1,000.