Billionaire crypto businessman Christopher Harborne has a fiercely competitive streak.
How else would he become the richest British-born billionaire on this year’s The Sunday Times Rich List?
At an estimated £18.2billion, his fortune dwarfs that of his fellow crypto billionaire and Reform mega-donor, Ben Delo.
And he wasn’t about to allow Mr Delo outgun him with his incredible largesse of a £36million donation – announced on Friday – to the party they both support.
As he shot back yesterday, matching Mr Delo’s incredible figure, Mr Harborne explained: ‘Whilst I have been making donations to Reform of around £1m a month, Ben Delo told me he was going to make a record donation of £36million. My competitive spirit inspired me to match it, so that is what I have done.’
And, writing in the Telegraph, he threw down the gauntlet to any other crypto billionaire with spare tens of millions: ‘I hope others may join us.’
It’s hard to credit just how much the reclusive Mr Harborne has given Mr Farage’s party: as well as yesterday’s £36m, there have been earlier donations, including to the Brexit Party, totalling £25million, according to Donation Watch.
On top of the declared cash he had given to Reform, there is the disputed £5million personal donation to Mr Farage before the 2024 election. The Reform leader claims it was for his personal security.
Christopher Harborne, Reform’s largest single donor, pictured with Reform leader Nigel Farage
Billionaire crypto businessman Harborne is another key supporter of Reform UK and is said to fiercely guard his privacy
Just as Delo spent time in Hong Kong, Cambridge-educated Harborne, born in Yorkshire to an affluent family, has lived for several decades in Thailand where he owns a wellness retreat.
Mr Harborne, 63, became a Thai citizen in 2011, and – as is required – took a Thai name Chakrit Sakunkrit. It means ‘the watchful one’.
He notoriously guards the secrets of his private life – it is even unknown whether he is married or has children – and he keeps well away from social media.
But that didn’t stop him being catapulted into the public eye earlier this year when the storm gathered over the separate £5million donation to Mr Farage.
The donation, given to Mr Farage in April 2024 before he was elected as an MP for Clacton, is being investigated by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner over whether it should have been officially declared.
Mr Farage has insisted the £5m donation was a personal gift for security and has previously defended the party against accusations that Mr Harborne’s gifts must mean he seeks undue influence over Reform.
He says that Mr Harborne wants ‘absolutely nothing’ back in return but ‘just happens to think that we’ve not made the most of Brexit, that we’re not getting into the 21st Century technologies’.
Mr Harborne himself offered an insight into his motivations in his piece for the Telegraph yesterday.
He wrote: ‘Britain needs to regenerate after more than a decade of decline.
‘I want us to be able to afford to fund healthcare, education and other public services such a social care, which are incredibly important to me and the whole of our country.
‘But these vital services can only be delivered i our country is strong…that’s why I’m putting my money into what I believe is the only viable cause which will get the job of regeneration done. And that is Reform UK.’
In a recent interview with the Telegraph, Mr Farage said that ‘Christopher is an ardent supporter who is deeply concerned for my safety’.
Mr Harborne previously donated to the Conservative Party, including a sum of £1m to former PM Boris Johnson’s company after he left office.
The aviation enthusiast once narrowly escaped death – as Mr Farage did himself in 2010 – when he crashed his light aircraft into a couple’s home in Hampshire in 2008.
He was educated at one of the UK’s most famous public schools, Westminster, before going on to Downing College, Cambridge, where he studied engineering.
It is known he worked for the management consultancy McKinsey as a consultant and corporations including PepsiCo before basing himself in the Far East.
He initially made his money in companies that traded in private planes and jet fuel and became a naturalised Thai citizen 15 years ago.
Like Delo, it was his involvement in cryptocurrency which saw him amass a vast personal fortune, first as a buyer of tokens and then as an investor in crypto mining.
He now owns 12% of stablecoin giant Tether, making him the largest individual shareholder in the El Salvador based firm.
Tether runs USDT – the world’s biggest stablecoin – which is a form of crypto backed up by hard currency, and serves as a conduit between riskier, volatile cryptocurrencies and the conventional finance system.
Earlier this year, crypto proponent Mr Farage told LBC: ‘Stablecoins, crypto, this world is enormous, and I’ve been urging for years that London should embrace it. We should become a global trading centre for this stuff.’
