Who is Reform donor and crypto billionaire Ben Delo?

Describing himself as an entrepreneur and philanthropist whose causes include neurodiversity, academic freedom and mathematical discovery, Ben Delo is a name most British voters are unlikely to have heard before now.

But with his record‑setting £36m donation to Reform UK, he is positioning himself to have a significant impact on the next general election, which could be held as far off as summer 2029.

His unprecedented gift has already inspired longtime Reform backer Christopher Harborne to match the sum - giving the party a massive election warchest.

Delo was born in Sheffield in 1984 to a civil engineer father and schoolteacher mother, a biography from his foundation says. At the age of 11, he was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome.

He attended Lord Williams's School, a state secondary comprehensive in Thame, Oxfordshire.

It was here that "he began to flourish and, with the right structured support in place, his academic potential was unlocked", a biography of him from his foundation says.

He went on to study mathematics and computer science at Worcester College, Oxford, graduating in 2005 with a double first.

He began his career as a software engineer at IBM, developing expertise across a range of technologies and financial systems including online trading, cybersecurity, analytics and data protection.

He was granted patents for several technologies he invented, including a software to automatically repair internet links to material that had been archived or moved, according to his official biography.

Delo then went on to work for hedge funds and banks including GSA Capital and Peel Hunt, developing high-frequency trading systems, before moving to Hong Kong in 2012 to work for JP Morgan.

An early enthusiast for Bitcoin, in 2014 he co-founded BitMex, an online derivatives platform. His foundation says the platform handled more than one trillion dollars in trading volume annually at its peak.

At BitMex he invented the "perpetual swap", characterised as "possibly the most successful derivatives product in the history of capitalism" by Ryan Radloff, former CEO of CoinShares, the world's first regulated bitcoin hedge fund.

Bloomberg's Izabella Kaminska described perpetual swaps as "one of the most important inventions to come out of crypto".

In 2022, Delo was convicted in the US for failing to implement adequate anti-money laundering controls at BitMex. He was sentenced to 30 months of probation and given a $10m (£7.3m) fine for violating the US Bank Secrecy Act, but was subsequently pardoned by President Donald Trump.

Delo became one of the youngest-ever signatories of The Giving Pledge in 2019, promising to give away the majority of his wealth during his lifetime. Since stepping back from an executive role that year, he says philanthropy has become his main focus and claims to have donated more than £100m to a range of causes.

Delo has been "motivated by the pursuit of truth" throughout his life and career, and by a "commitment to rationalism, intellectual honesty and frank, open debate".

It is these "rationalist principles" that guided his money giving, with an initial focus on causes related to "free enquiry and academic freedom, mathematics education and research, neurodiversity and young people with autism, and fostering collaboration across the Commonwealth".

But having moved back to the UK in recent years, he says he has broadened his support to initiatives concerning national renewal.

He believes "Britain is a great nation that has been badly let down by its governing classes over recent decades".

"He is concerned that without radical action, it may fall into a doom loop of economic stagnation, social fracture and self-doubt," his biography says.

And so, he will support those who "champion a renewal in governance and civic life, challenge orthodoxy, and promote the discussion of new ideas with the overall objective of setting us on a path for a prosperous future".

It seems with his £36m donation to Reform UK, he believes Nigel Farage is the man to deliver this.