Crypto billionaires give Reform UK record £72 million

Christopher Harborne gave Reform UK £36 million ($48.7 million) on Saturday, according to CoinDesk’s report on the donations. Ben Delo, the BitMEX co-founder, matched it, taking the party’s haul from the two crypto billionaires to £72 million ($97.4 million) in 24 hours.

The amount equals the largest individual political donations in U.K. history. It also arrives while the House of Lords considers the Representation of the People Bill, which would halt crypto donations and cap overseas giving at £100,000 a year, according to The Block’s account of the legislation and funding.

The payment method is not established in the available reporting. Whether either £36 million donation was made in cryptocurrency remains unknown, even as the proposed law directly targets crypto contributions.

The arithmetic

The record is clearer than the route the money took. Lord John Sainsbury left £10 million to the Conservatives in 2022. Each new £36 million donation is therefore 3.6 times that amount (£36 million ÷ £10 million); together, the two gifts are 7.2 times larger (£72 million ÷ £10 million).

Harborne’s latest contribution also follows a previous £12 million donation to Reform disclosed in December 2025. On the reported figures, his latest payment is three times that earlier contribution (£36 million ÷ £12 million).

The party’s earlier fundraising already had a heavy crypto connection. CoinDesk’s timeline records that Harborne and Delo gave roughly £3 million and £4 million, respectively, in the first quarter of 2026. Against Reform’s reported £9.26 million in donations during that quarter, excluding public funds, the pair supplied about 76% of the total (£7 million ÷ £9.26 million).

That makes the latest 24-hour haul a much larger concentration of funding than the party’s prior quarterly disclosures. The numbers also explain why the donations matter to crypto readers even without a token transaction attached: two individuals linked to the sector have supplied an unusually large share of a political party’s disclosed funding.

The policy clock

The government announced in March that it planned to ban political donations made in cryptocurrency and cap contributions from overseas electors at £100,000 annually. Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the crypto donation suspension on March 25.

The bill cleared the House of Commons on Sept. 2 and moved to the House of Lords on Sept. 3. Its crypto suspension would apply retroactively to donations made on or after March 25, the date of Starmer’s announcement.

That creates a direct consequence for Reform and for donors whose contributions fall within the bill’s scope: if the legislation becomes law as described, crypto donations made from March 25 onward would be halted, while overseas giving would face a £100,000 annual ceiling. The latest payments were announced on Sept. 12, but their form and treatment under the bill are not established in the supplied sources.

Reform became the first U.K. political party to accept crypto donations in May 2025. Farage had also vowed that, if Reform won power, it would establish a bitcoin reserve at the Bank of England and cut capital gains tax on crypto to 10%.

Harborne is an investor in stablecoin issuer Tether and cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex. The Block described him as a British investor based in Thailand with an estimated 12% stake in Tether. Delo moved back to the U.K. from Hong Kong this year.

Scrutiny around Reform’s funding

The donations land alongside investigations into the party’s funding. The Metropolitan Police opened a criminal investigation last week after a Channel 4 News broadcast showed senior Reform figures discussing routes for money from an American donor.

Farage resigned from his Clacton seat in July after a parliamentary standards investigation into an undeclared £5 million personal gift from Harborne in 2024, alongside a second probe into support from George Cottrell. The supplied sources do not establish whether those investigations concern the new £72 million haul.

Harborne rejected the idea that his donation was made for a personal or policy return. “So what do I expect in return for my donations? Nothing. No peerage, no policy change, just a party that is ready for government,” he said.

Delo framed his contribution as political responsibility: “I believe it is the duty of people with broad shoulders and deep pockets to step up and help Reform to win and govern, rather than allow the British people to be trapped in the political monoculture that is driving this country off a cliff.”

Labour MP Stella Creasy took the opposite view, writing that Delo’s donation showed the proposed cap “cannot come too soon to protect British democracy.” The desk’s read is limited to the record and the timing: crypto-linked wealth has become a major funding force for Reform just as lawmakers consider restricting the channels through which such money can enter British politics.