du Launches Second Cloud Miner Auction to Fuel UAE’s Crypto Buzz

du seems to be riding quite a wave at the moment, and the latest celebration at its Dubai HQ shows just how much buzz its Cloud Miner service has stirred up. I’ve seen plenty of ambitious digital offerings across the region through my work with Arageek’s startup crowd, but the level of interest they reported this time was, well… a bit of an eye‑opener. The telco marked the success of its first Cloud Miner auction — run under its du Tech sub-brand — with a formal ceremony alongside Majid Mustafa Ahli, the CEO of Online Auction. From what’s been shared publicly, the inaugural bidding round drew crypto‑curious residents from all over the UAE, far more than anyone seemed to expect.

And instead of slowing down, they’re doubling down. A second auction is now rolling out on Online Auction’s platform, running for six days from 23 November. More compute capacity will be released — essentially more Cloud Miner contracts — giving people another shot at joining in. I reckon this format, mixing telecom-grade infrastructure with the thrill of an online auction, taps neatly into that local appetite for novelty without the faff of building mining rigs at home.

Jasim Al Awadi, du’s Chief ICT Officer, framed the response as proof that people in the UAE are looking for mining options that feel secure and transparent, not to mention locally hosted. He noted that the momentum around Cloud Miner has encouraged du Tech to push out fresh contract opportunities so more residents can take part in what he called “digital asset innovation”. Spot on, in a way — the market here often warms quickly to anything that promises simplicity plus regulation.

On the flip side, Majid Mustafa Ahli stressed how the first auction had passed expectations on their side too, crediting both the partnership and a growing readiness for new types of digital investment. He pointed to Online Auction’s role in keeping the bidding process smooth, which makes sense if they’re aiming to scale this further.

Cloud Miner itself is being positioned as the UAE’s first telco-backed cloud mining service. The idea is to democratise Bitcoin mining by stripping out hardware ownership, electricity bills, and maintenance headaches. I remember chatting with a couple of young founders at a recent Arageek meetup who said keeping mining rigs cool in Gulf summers is “a nightmare waiting to happen”, so outsourcing all that to du’s data centres must be a relief for many. Once someone activates a contract, mining starts immediately — backed by verification steps like UAE Pass plus KYC and AML checks. It’s all fairly buttoned-up, though I’m not a fan of how dense these onboarding flows can sometimes feel.

du, as ever, is weaving this into its wider push on digital services, from connectivity to cloud, AI tools, cybersecurity, fintech — the whole lot. They talk often about helping drive the UAE’s digital transformation, and believe it or not, moves like this do show how telcos in the region aren’t just sticking to SIM cards anymore.

Whether Cloud Miner becomes a long-term hit or just a shiny experiment, we’ll see. But for now, the bidding fever is definately real.

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