Beijing Sci-Tech Report (BSTR), China’s oldest media publication covering the tech industry, has announced it will offer subscriptions payable with Bitcoin (BTC), local media outlet Guangming reported Sunday, September 30. An evidently rare occurrence from China, were government pressure has forced crypto exchanges and Initial Coin Offering (ICO) operators to halt activities over the past year, BSTR says it wishes to promote blockchain and crypto use through “practical actions.” “[S]ubscribers can pay subscription fees to the specific bitcoin receiving address of the newspaper to complete the subscription,” Guangming confirms. The product on offer is an annual subscription to the publication’s ‘Tech Life’ magazine, which costs 0.01 BTC (about $65). Chinese authorities continue to clamp down on trading and promotional operations related to cryptocurrency, Cointelegraph reporting on fresh efforts to tackle overseas platforms by blocking access to them online in August. At the same time, owning and investing in cryptocurrency is not officially illegal. Responding to queries about the BSTR move on social media, Chinese cryptocurrency news commentator cnLedger underlined the fact that by offering a Bitcoin subscription, the publication was not breaking the law. “Owning and investing in crypto is not banned,” it wrote. “Otherwise Jihan (Wu, CEO) of Bitmain and Leon (Li, CEO) of Huobi would be among the first ones to get fined/caught. Thousands if not millions would have been arrested already (large amount of OTC tradings).”
Beijing Sci - Tech Magazine , China 's oldest tech magazine , announced it would now offer subscription payments in bitcoin despite widespread government crackdowns on use of cryptocurrencies in recent years . The magazine said in a statement that the move was intended to encourage the promotion of blockchain - based payment methods via ' practical actions " , with an annual subscription set to cost 0.01 BTC ( $ 65 ) . The Chinese government has taken a number of actions to curb the use of the technology , forcing crypto exchanges to cease trading over the past year and recently attempting to block access to overseas platforms using the technology .