Tether Stakeholder Gave Farage Undisclosed $6.7M Reward Amid Reform UK Crypto Funding Scrutiny – Decrypt

Christopher Harborne, a billionaire with a 12% stake in USDT stablecoin issuer Tether, gave Nigel Farage a beforehand undisclosed $6.7 million (£5 million) present in 2024.

The donation, first reported in The Guardian, was to pay for his private safety, Farage later informed The Every day Telegraph.

The cost was reportedly structured as a private present and was by no means formally disclosed below UK marketing campaign finance legal guidelines. On the time Farage acquired the present, he had not introduced plans to run as a Member of Parliament; he subsequently ran for and received the seat of Clacton.

The present is separate from Harborne’s £12 million in donations to the Reform UK social gathering itself. Earlier disclosures present Harborne made a £9 million donation final yr—the UK’s biggest-ever political donation on the time—and an extra £3 million contribution revealed in March.

Crypto political funding within the UK

Whereas neither of Harborne’s donations to Reform UK had been made within the type of cryptocurrency, they’ve added to mounting scrutiny over the position of the crypto trade in political funding within the UK—which Harborne’s present to Farage will do nothing to dispel.

Final month, the UK authorities introduced an instantaneous moratorium on crypto property as a type of political financing, following the government-commissioned Rycroft overview into international electoral interference.

On the time, Reform UK was the one main political social gathering within the nation to just accept crypto donations. It acquired the UK’s first-ever crypto donation in October 2025, in keeping with reporting from The Observer, although no declaration was made to the Electoral Fee.

Responding to the ban, Farage accused Labour ministers of being “out of contact.” Previous to the ban, a number of Labour MPs together with parliamentary committee chairs had come out in help of a ban on crypto donations, which Labour MP Rushanara Ali referred to as a vector for “international interference in our democracy.”

Farage has positioned himself as a “champion” for cryptocurrency, calling for decrease capital beneficial properties taxes on crypto and for the institution of a nationwide Bitcoin reserve.

Harborne, who resides in Thailand, isn’t the one abroad crypto billionaire to donate to Reform UK. Earlier this month, Hong Kong-based BitMEX co-founder Ben Delo, who beforehand pleaded responsible within the U.S. to breaches of the Financial institution Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering failures, revealed a $5.4 million (£4 million) donation to Farage’s social gathering. Delo, who paid a $10 million legal advantageous over the case, was subsequently pardoned by U.S. President Donald Trump.