A Chinese court has sentenced two employees of a crypto exchange to prison time after the platform accepted bets on financial outcomes. [Image: Shutterstock.com]

A court in China has ruled that a cryptocurrency exchange was offering an illegal form of gambling by allowing futures trading, which it deems to be betting on financial outcomes. The People’s Court of Pingjiang County in Hunan Province concluded that eight of BKEX’s employees were guilty of “opening a casino,” and some of them will now serve prison time.

The longest sentence is 25 months for Zheng Lei, a department head and wallet engineer. He will also have to pay a ¥150,000 (US$20,873) fine and forfeit ¥1.34m (US$186,466) in earnings for providing technical support to an illegal gambling operation.

The company’s head of audit got 23 months, and one of its agents who earned US$33,558 in commission received a suspended 18-month sentence.

platform’s profits reportedly reached US$54.7m and had about 60,000 active traders

The platform’s profits reportedly reached US$54.7m and had about 60,000 active traders when investigators stepped in.

The authorities in China are coming down hard on cryptocurrency-related dealings as they believe the sector threatens the country’s financial stability. A ban remains in place on mining and trading any cryptocurrency.