coindesk.com
Crypto investor Christopher Harborne donated 36 million pounds ($48.7 million) to Nigel Farage’s political party Reform U.K. on Saturday, matching BitMEX co-founder Ben Delo’s contribution and bringing the British political party’s haul from the two billionaires to 72 million pounds ($97.4 million) in just 24 hours.
The gifts are jointly the largest individual donations to a U.K. political party, The Guardian reported. Harborne, an investor in stablecoin issuer Tether and cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, announced his contribution a day after Delo’s.
“So what do I expect in return for my donations? Nothing. No peerage, no policy change, just a party that is ready for government,” Harborne said. Farage said the money would help Reform compete at the next general election.
The contributions sharply increase the scale of crypto wealth backing the party. Harborne’s latest gift is four times the $12 million donation disclosed in December 2025, which was then reported as the largest single contribution to a British political party by a living donor.
Harborne and Delo subsequently gave about 3 million and 4 million pounds, respectively, in the first quarter of 2026. Together, that accounted for roughly 76% of Reform’s 9.26 million pounds in reported donations, excluding public funds, according to a calculation based on Electoral Commission figures.
Farage has actively courted the industry.
At the Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas in May 2025, he vowed to establish a bitcoin reserve at the Bank of England, introduce a 10% capital gains tax on cryptoassets and prevent banks from closing customers’ accounts because of their crypto activity.
The Guardian’s report did not specify whether the latest donations were paid in cryptocurrency. Harborne’s earlier 9-million-pound gift was made in cash.
In March, the Electoral Commission told lawmakers that no political party had reported donations identified as cryptoassets, according to a House of Commons Library briefing.
The new funding arrives as the Metropolitan Police investigate allegations concerning Reform’s political donations. Farage separately faces a parliamentary standards investigation over a 5 million pound personal gift from Harborne before his election as an MP in 2024. Reform and Farage deny wrongdoing, per The Guardian’s report.
The government separately announced plans in March to ban political donations made in cryptocurrency and cap contributions from overseas electors at 100,000 pounds annually.