In a first for the UAE, telecom provider du has brought Bitcoin mining to smartphones. To do so, du has unveiled a cloud-based platform dubbed “Cloud Miner” over the weekend. The service will fall under the fresh category of “Cloud Mining as a Service (MaaS).
Based in Dubai, du is parented by the Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (EITC) and its services are available across Dubai. For Cloud Miner as well, du has planned to keep it exclusive to the region. For now, the service will exclusively be available in Dubai.
Cloud Miner will let users rent computational power from the telecom provider. This will eliminate the need for them to invest in expensive equipment.
“Cloud Miner simplifies entry into the world of cryptocurrency mining by providing a secure, transparent, and fully managed cloud-based solution,”
we are not only democratizing access to emerging technologies but also empowering individuals to participate in the evolving digital economy,” said du CEO Fahad Al Hassawi. “We are not only democratizing access to emerging technologies but also empowering individuals to participate in the evolving digital economy.”
Those interested in subscribing to the feature will be able to do through an online auction between November 3 and 9 on onlineauction.ae, the Gulf News reported. Each secured subscriber will be able to tap into 250 terahashes per second (TH/s) of mining capacity for two years. The participants in this auction will need to undergo a KYC process and pledge to comply with the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) standards.
With charges linked to hardware usage and servicing and electricity removed from the situation, Cloud Miner subscribers will have to bear expenses including fixed service fee. The local data and financial protection frameworks will monitor the service.
Bitcoin mining is the process of adding new blocks to the Bitcoin blockchain. Miners, up until now, have had to rely on advanced, energy-intensive computers to solve complicated algorithmic problems for this process. In return, they get rewards in BTC. The process of BTC mining has long been at the receiving end of criticism because of its impacts on the environment being energy intensive.
UAE, as of August, held about 6,300 Bitcoin (BTC) amounting to $700 million at the time, a report by Arkham Intelligence had said. It had noted that UAE’s BTC holdings are predominantly the result of local mining operations.
Given the growing interest in BTC mining among its residents, the UAE is now gradually applying regulations over this activity. Last month, for instance, the Abu Dhabi Agricultural and Food Safety Authority announced a fine of $100,000 for mining Bitcoin on a farmland.