BitMEX co-founder Ben Delo and Tether investor Christopher Harborne each gave £36 million to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK on consecutive days last week, a combined £72 million (about $97 million) and a record for a British political party. Neither man has said how the money was paid, and the crypto label hanging over the story is doing more work than the evidence supports.
Delo announced his gift in an article published Friday, September 11, calling it the duty of “people with broad shoulders and deep pockets” to help Reform win and govern, as he wrote in the announcement. Harborne matched it a day later, citing his “competitive spirit” and writing in his own announcement that he expected “no peerage, no policy change” in return. Neither announcement states the payment method.
That gap matters. Three outlets covering the donations say the form of payment was not revealed; one asserts flatly that the money was fiat. On the record as it stands, the question is open. Harborne’s earlier gifts to Reform, including £9 million in August 2025, were made in cash. And the Electoral Commission told lawmakers in March that no UK political party had reported a donation identified as a cryptoasset.
What is established is that both men built their fortunes in crypto: Delo co-founded the BitMEX exchange, pleaded guilty in 2022 to US anti-money-laundering violations and was pardoned by President Trump in March 2025; Harborne holds an estimated 12% stake in Tether. Calling them crypto billionaires is accurate. Whether the cheques were is not.
The regulatory backdrop sharpens the point. The Representation of the People Bill, which cleared the House of Commons on September 2 and is now before the Lords, would suspend political donations in cryptocurrency retroactively to March 25, 2026, and cap gifts from overseas electors at £100,000 a year. It is not law until it passes the Lords and receives royal assent. Delo said he paid his planned £1 million monthly schedule up front, until the election due by 2029, in case the government caps donations.
Reform was the first UK party to accept crypto donations, in May 2025. So far, on the official record, no crypto donation has arrived.
