Crypto Billionaires Donate Record £72 Million to Reform UK

Reform UK has received two record-breaking donations of £36 million each from cryptocurrency billionaires Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne. This brings Reform's total fundraising to around £86 million in 2026, surpassing the combined total raised by both Labour and the Conservatives last year.

Ben Delo, a 42-year-old former software engineer at IBM, co-founded cryptocurrency platform BitMEX in 2014. He has been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome since childhood and graduated from the University of Oxford with double first-class honours degrees in mathematics and computer science in 2005.

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

Delo's £36 million donation to Reform UK is meant to ensure a 'fair fight' at the polls and avoid attempts to block it. He believes that Reform should focus on preparing for government rather than raising funds to compete with other parties.