According to Chinese law, trading in crypto futures contracts involves the ability for users to place bets on future financial results, which is not much different from a totalizator.

The court ruled that the BKEX crypto exchange attracted more than 270,000 users to such illegal trading, which brought the company a net profit of about $54.7 million (300 million yuan).

The prosecutor's office has charged eight employees and agents of the BKEX crypto exchange directly involved in processing transactions with criminal offenses. The court agreed to sentence them to various prison terms, depending on the degree of involvement in the trading platform.

Earlier, the State Administration for Currency Control of China (SAFE) included cryptocurrency operations in the category of risky transactions and required financial organizations to monitor all transactions.