Reform UK donor Ben Delo, a British crypto billionaire, has given the party a record £36million, matched by a similar sum from fellow crypto investor Christopher Harborne, in what is intended to build a "war chest" for Nigel Farage ahead of the next general election. Delo, 42, moved back to the UK earlier this year after the government capped donations from expatriates, accusing Sir Keir Starmer of "stacking the political deck" against Reform, and made the payment as a single lump sum to avoid any further tightening of donation rules.

Delo, who was expelled from three primary schools before being diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome and going on to study maths and computer science at Oxford, co-founded the Hong Kong-based crypto exchange BitMEX in 2014, becoming Britain's youngest self-made billionaire by 2018. In 2020 he was charged by US authorities over anti-money-laundering failures at BitMEX, pleading guilty and paying a $10million fine, though he was later pardoned by Donald Trump; critics say the conviction raises questions about the source of Reform's funding, while Delo insists early crypto pioneers were unfairly prosecuted.