Ben Delo, the man behind the single largest-ever political donation in the UK, has handed Nigel Farage's party a record-breaking £36 million – yet the crypto billionaire is known for living far more modestly than his extraordinary fortune might suggest.
The 42-year-old, named the UK's youngest self-made billionaire by the Times in 2018, reportedly enjoys nothing more than using special-offer vouchers to pay for his McDonald's meals. He once admitted to owning just three pairs of shoes – trainers, leather brogues and flip-flops.
From Sheffield to Oxford
Delo came from semi-humble beginnings. The eldest of four siblings, he was born in Sheffield around the time of the miners' strike to mum Claire, a teacher, and dad Andrew, a civil engineer. He was the class clown at school, which got him kicked out three times, and he was later diagnosed with Asperger syndrome.
Recalling a 2016 interview, he said: "The head teacher, when he kicked me out, said he had aged two years in those three months. I was then out of school for the rest of that year." The family later relocated to Thame, Oxfordshire, where Delo went to comprehensive Lord Williams's School.
It was there that his dreams of earning big bucks began – he used his home economics classes to make pizzas to flog to pupils and teachers. At 16, he wrote about wanting to be an "internet entrepreneur, millionaire [and] computer programmer" in an annual pupil review.
BitMEX and a presidential pardon
After gaining a place at Oxford to study maths and computer science, Delo once turned up to a formal dinner wearing a wetsuit with his gown – the rules stipulated a gown and a "suit". After short spells at the US Patent and Trademark Office and several hedge funds, he founded the cryptocurrency trading platform BitMEX in 2014.
In 2022 he was convicted in the US for failing to implement adequate anti-money laundering controls in BitMEX, but President Trump pardoned him in 2025. He used to spend weekends dressing up as kids' book character Where's Wally, and converted a large windowsill in his Hong Kong flat into a single-bed Airbnb to cover some of the rent.
Christopher Harborne matches the donation
Once a Tory Party donor, billionaire Christopher Harborne has already given millions to Reform UK over the years. The crypto tycoon is estimated to be the sixth-richest UK billionaire, with a personal fortune of around £18.2bn.
Over the past seven years, Harborne had given more than £22 million to Reform, accounting for two-thirds of all funding received by Nigel Farage's party. Before he matched Ben Delo's £36 million donation, Harborne's £9 million had been the largest single amount ever given by a living donor.
According to his lawyers, Harborne is an "intensely private person" and has given no public explanation of his reasons for donating. Cryptocurrency has turbocharged his wealth – he is one of half a dozen owners of crypto firm Tether, often branded the most profitable company per employee in history.
Harborne grew up in Mosborough, a village near Sheffield. Aerospace businessman Mark Vellacott, a close friend of his late sister Katharine, once said Harborne was similar in character to his mother Joan, a Yorkshire woman from a well-off background. Vellacott said of Harborne: "Chris does not like anything that's going to control him."
After private school in Westminster, Harborne followed his father Edgar to Cambridge, where he studied engineering and rowed for his college. Moving to Thailand in 1996, he joined a market research firm owned by a member of the powerful Bulakul family. Later, he made his first political donation – some £10,000 to the Tories. Harborne's lawyers have said in court filings that he has given money to various groups, including victims of the 2004 tsunami and remote Thai tribes.
