BitMEX co-founder Ben Delo has given Reform UK a further £4 million, bringing his total donations to Nigel Farage's party to £8 million this year, according to Electoral Commission records published Thursday.

The money came as two cash payments: £1 million received on April 17 and £3 million received on April 30, both accepted the following day. Together they accounted for 75% of the £5.33 million Reform took in donations during the quarter, and no other single gift to the party reached £200,000. The two payments were also the largest single gifts to any British party in the quarter.

Reform out-raised Labour, which accepted £3.59 million, though the Conservatives reported more overall. Christopher Harborne, the Thailand-based billionaire Tether investor who has given Reform £15 million since the last election, gave nothing to any party this quarter. Delo's £8 million total this year is second only to Harborne's among the party's donors. The figures underscore how thoroughly the crypto-linked donors who once favored Reform's openness to digital assets have come to dominate its funding base, and quarterly Electoral Commission disclosures like Thursday's are the main public window into how British parties are financed.

Since March, donors have been required to have 12 months on the UK electoral register in order to give more than £100,000 a year. A Reform source told The Guardian the party is confident it will not have to hand back Delo's £4 million, raising the possibility that he was registered for longer than assumed.

Cash, not crypto

None of the money was paid in cryptocurrency. Britain banned crypto political donations in March, and Reform had been the only major party accepting them. Neither Delo's nor Harborne's contributions have taken that form.

Delo pleaded guilty in 2022 to violating the Bank Secrecy Act over anti-money laundering failures at BitMEX, before U.S. President Donald Trump pardoned him and the exchange's fellow co-founders Arthur Hayes and Samuel Reed in 2025. Writing in the Telegraph in April, Delo described the case as "a regulatory failing that isn't even a crime in the UK."

BitMEX itself is winding down. Owner HDR Global Trading said in July that the exchange, which Delo co-founded in 2014 and no longer runs, will close on September 23 following a strategic review. Delo's shift into political giving comes as several figures from the crypto industry have redirected wealth toward politics in the US and UK in recent years, though his donations are now entirely in conventional cash.

The donation comes as Reform's funding faces wider scrutiny. Farage's aide Dan Jukes and policy chief James Orr stepped down on Friday, hours before the party conference opened, after Channel 4 aired footage of them arranging for a supposed U.S. company—in fact controlled by undercover journalists—to fund £32,500 of party polling.

Farage said Reform had "taken no illegal money," blamed "loose pub talk" by two men who were not authorized to act as they did, and ordered an internal investigation. The Electoral Commission says it is in touch with the Metropolitan Police, which has not opened an inquiry. Separately, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is weighing whether Farage should have declared Harborne's £5 million personal gift. The coming months will show whether regulators act on any of these threads, and future quarterly disclosures will track whether Delo and Harborne continue to anchor the party's finances.

Source: Decrypt