A New York federal court previously sentenced the firm’s co-founders to probation time and fines for federal compliance failures.

A high-ranking employee at off-shore, crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX has pleaded guilty for violating a U.S. federal anti-money laundering law, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced Monday.

Gregory Dwyer, who formerly served as BitMEX’s head of business development, pleaded guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act for “failing to establish, implement, and maintain an anti-money laundering program” at BitMEX.”

The U.S. Attorney previously secured judgements against the firm’s three co-founders, Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo and Samuel Reed. Prosecutors have said that the lack of know-your-customer (KYC) requirements at BitMEX allowed the company to thrive as a hotbed for criminal activity, including money laundering and sanctions evasion.

“Today’s plea reflects that employees with management authority at cryptocurrency exchanges, no less than the founders of such exchanges, cannot willfully disregard their obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a press release.

Two years ago, the CFTC, DOJ and FinCEN slapped BitMex with civil and criminal charges after the firm allowed U.S. residents to trade crypto derivatives on its platform without being registered in the states or having substandard know-your-customer (KYC) practices. Although the agencies later settled with BitMEX for $100 million last summer, the charges resulted in a change of leadership at the exchange.

According to the plea agreement’s terms, Dwyer agreed to pay a $150,000 fine. The maximum penalty for his crime is five years in prison.

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The crypto exchange said trading will be rescheduled when the market improves.

Crypto futures and spot exchange BitMEX has delayed listing its Ethereum-based BMEX token because of market conditions, the company said in a statement Tuesday.

“We have made the decision to postpone the listing of the BMEX Token on our spot exchange,” it said. “The reason is quite simple. Although we are ready to list BMEX, the present market conditions are not ideal, and we want to list the token in an environment that gives it the best chance to reward you, its holders.”

Crypto markets have taken a beating in the past few months amid systemic risks from within the crypto sector and concerns of inflation in the global economy. Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, has dropped more than 70% from its lifetime high, and total market capitalization has fallen more than 55% from its mid-November peak.

BitMEX airdropped 1.5 million BMEX, its first native token, to users earlier this year as it looked to revive retail interest in an increasingly competitive crypto exchange market. The tokens were distributed based on a user’s activity on the exchange, as reported.

The Ethereum-based tokens are locked in a five-year vesting contract and have a maximum supply of 450 million. They will be used to reward new and existing BitMEX users and allow them to get discounts on trading fees.

In Tuesday’s post, BitMEX said it had sent “millions of tokens to hundreds and thousands of users” and that the tokens are already being staked to receive fee discounts, withdrawal refunds, and other perks.

BitMEX said it is continuing to airdrop the token to its traders and new users. “More time to accrue; more BMEX for our users to earn,” the exchange said.

Some users, however, expressed their dismay regarding the decision on Twitter.

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