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Key Takeaways
- Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo each gave Reform UK £36 million on consecutive days, totaling £72 million ($97.4 million).
- The combined gift is the largest individual donation on record to a U.K. political party.
- The funding arrives amid police and parliamentary investigations into Reform’s donations, and as the government weighs a ban on crypto political donations.
Crypto investor Christopher Harborne donated £36 million ($48.7 million) to Nigel Farage’s Reform U.K. party on Saturday. The gift matched a £36 million donation from BitMEX co-founder Ben Delo a day earlier. Combined, the two donations brought Reform’s haul from the pair to £72 million ($97.4 million) within 24 hours.
Donations Set a New U.K. Record
The £72 million combined gift ranks as the largest individual donations to a U.K. political party on record, according to a report on the donations. Harborne, an investor in stablecoin issuer Tether and crypto exchange Bitfinex, announced his contribution one day after Delo disclosed his own.
Harborne framed the donation as unconditional support for the party.
“So what do I expect in return for my donations? Nothing. No peerage, no policy change, just a party that is ready for government.”
Farage said the funds would help Reform compete in the next general election.
Gift Dwarfs Earlier Contributions
Harborne’s latest donation is four times the $12 million contribution he disclosed in December 2025, which was reported at the time as the largest single gift to a British political party from a living donor. Harborne and Delo had also given roughly £3 million and £4 million, respectively, in the first quarter of 2026.
Those first-quarter gifts accounted for about 76% of Reform’s £9.26 million in reported donations for the period, excluding public funds, based on a calculation using Electoral Commission figures.
The Saturday and Sunday donations were not included in that count and represent a sharp jump in the scale of crypto-linked funding flowing to the party.
Farage Has Courted the Crypto Industry
Farage has made direct appeals to crypto investors before. At the Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas in May 2025, he pledged to establish a Bitcoin reserve at the Bank of England, introduce a 10% capital gains tax on cryptoassets and bar banks from closing customer accounts over crypto-related activity.
It is not confirmed whether the latest £72 million in donations was paid in cryptocurrency. Harborne’s earlier £9 million gift was made in cash. In March, the Electoral Commission told lawmakers that no U.K. political party had reported donations identified as cryptoassets, according to a House of Commons Library briefing.
Funding Arrives Amid Active Investigations
The new donations land as the Metropolitan Police investigate allegations tied to Reform’s political donations. Farage separately faces a parliamentary standards investigation over a £5 million personal gift from Christopher Harborne made before Farage’s election as an MP in 2024. Reform and Farage have denied wrongdoing in connection with both matters.
The U.K. government has moved separately to tighten donation rules. In March, it announced plans to ban political donations made in cryptocurrency and to cap contributions from overseas electors at £100,000 annually. Those proposals have not been enacted.
What the Donations Mean for Reform’s Finances
The £72 million gift substantially reshapes Reform’s donor base heading into the next general election cycle. Harborne and Delo were already the party’s two largest funders in the first quarter of 2026, and the latest contributions extend that lead by a wide margin.
The scale of the gift also raises the profile of crypto wealth in U.K. politics at a time when regulators are still working out how, or whether, cryptoasset-based donations should be treated differently from cash.
With no crypto donation ban yet in force, Harborne and Delo’s combined support stands as the clearest test case so far of how large an individual crypto investor’s political influence can grow under current law.
