TLDR
- Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo each donated £36 million to Reform UK within 24 hours, totalling £72 million ($97 million)
- The combined gifts are jointly the largest individual donations ever made to a UK political party
- Harborne is an investor in Tether and Bitfinex; Delo co-founded the BitMEX crypto exchange
- Both donors said they expected nothing in return, with Delo framing it as ensuring a “fair fight” at the polls
- Reform UK faces scrutiny over its crypto-linked funding, and the UK government has proposed banning political donations made in cryptocurrency
Two cryptocurrency billionaires handed Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party £72 million ($97 million) within a single 24-hour window, setting a new record for individual political donations in the United Kingdom.
LATEST: 🇬🇧Two crypto entrepreneurs donated a combined £72 MILLION to Reform UK, the right-wing British political party led by Nigel Farage, per BBC.
Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne each gave a record £36 MILLION. Harborne had already donated £9 MILLION in August.
Delo said he… pic.twitter.com/8SgMgiZOjd
— Coin Bureau (@coinbureau) September 13, 2026
Ben Delo, co-founder of the BitMEX cryptocurrency exchange, donated £36 million on Friday. The following day, Christopher Harborne, an investor in stablecoin issuer Tether and crypto exchange Bitfinex, matched the donation.
The two gifts are jointly the largest ever made to a British political party.
Harborne said he was inspired to match Delo after reading about the contribution. “No peerage, no policy change, just a party that is ready for government,” he wrote in The Telegraph.
Delo framed his donation as securing a fair contest at the polls. He said the £36 million represented £1 million per month until the next general election in 2029, but paid the full amount upfront to prevent it from being blocked.
Farage welcomed the money, saying it would allow Reform to contest the next election on a level playing field.
Prior Donations and Growing Crypto Ties
This was not the first time either donor had backed Reform. Harborne gave the party £9 million in August 2025 and further contributions in early 2026. Delo also donated in the first quarter of 2026.
Together, Harborne and Delo accounted for roughly 76% of Reform’s reported donations in the first quarter of 2026, excluding public funds, based on Electoral Commission figures.
Harborne’s previous £12 million donation in December 2025 was at the time reported as the largest single contribution to a British political party by a living donor. His latest gift is four times that amount.
Farage has actively pursued crypto industry support. At a Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas in May 2025, he pledged to create a Bitcoin reserve at the Bank of England, introduce a 10% capital gains tax on crypto assets, and stop banks from closing accounts due to crypto activity.
Investigations and Proposed Bans
The donations arrive against a backdrop of legal and political scrutiny.
The Metropolitan Police are investigating allegations related to Reform’s political funding. Farage also faces a parliamentary standards inquiry over a £5 million personal gift from Harborne ahead of his election as an MP in 2024. Both Farage and Reform deny wrongdoing.
Farage resigned as an MP in July following what he described as a crypto scandal, but won the resulting by-election with 63% of the vote.
The UK government announced plans in March to ban political donations made in cryptocurrency and cap contributions from overseas donors at £100,000 per year. Labour MPs have since discussed making that moratorium permanent.
Delo himself has a legal history in the US. He was one of three BitMEX co-founders who pleaded guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act. He agreed to pay a $10 million fine in 2022 and received a pardon from President Donald Trump in March 2025.
The Electoral Commission has confirmed that no UK political party has yet reported donations identified as crypto assets.
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