Crypto Billionaire Ben Delo Donates £36 Million to Reform, Alters British Politics Landscape

Crypto billionaire Ben Delo has donated £36 million to Reform, a UK-based think tank and political party. This is the largest donation in British politics history, surpassing the total received by all UK parties last year. The combined £72 million from Delo and another donor, Christopher Harborne, who matched the amount the following day, represents more than the total raised by Labour and the Conservatives.

Ben Delo, 42, is a Sheffield-born mathematician and computer scientist who graduated with a double first-class honours degree from Oxford University in 2005. He co-founded cryptocurrency platform BitMEX in 2014 and was reported to be the UK's youngest self-made billionaire by The Times in 2018.

Delo considers himself a philanthropist, having signed the Giving Pledge in 2019. His net worth is estimated at around £1 billion. He has donated to various causes, including maths education and neurodiversity. In 2022, he was convicted in the US for failings in an anti-money laundering programme but was later pardoned by President Donald Trump.

Delo made the £36 million donation to Reform to ensure a 'fair fight' at the polls. He claims that he wants to avoid attempts to block the payment and has written that unlike others, who want to maintain a cartel-like system, he wants a level playing field.