The UK’s Electoral Commission released quarterly donation figures revealing that Christopher Harborne, a British billionaire and former shareholder in Tether the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin.
USDT and its affiliated exchange Bitfinex, donated £9 million approximately $11.4–12 million to Reform UK, the right-wing populist party led by Nigel Farage.
This marks the largest single political donation ever made by a living individual to a UK party, surpassing previous records like the £8 million given by Lord David Sainsbury to the Liberal Democrats in 2019.
Register for Tekedia Mini-MBA edition 19 (Feb 9 – May 2, 2026): big discounts for early bird.
Tekedia AI in Business Masterclass opens registrations.
Join Tekedia Capital Syndicate and co-invest in great global startups.
Register for Tekedia AI Lab: From Technical Design to Deployment (next edition begins Jan 24 2026).
The only larger sum on record is a posthumous £10 million bequest from the late Lord John Sainsbury to the Conservatives in 2022. Harborne, a Thailand-based aviation entrepreneur and crypto investor also known as Chakrit Sakunkrit, held a significant stake in DigFinex, the parent company of Tether and Bitfinex, from 2017 to 2018.
He has a history of funding right-wing causes, including £6 million to the Brexit Party (Reform UK’s predecessor) in 2019 and £3 million before the 2019 general election, plus £1.6 million to the Conservatives.
In 2022, he gave £1 million to Boris Johnson’s private office—the largest known donation to an individual MP at the time. Harborne’s son, William, is CEO of Rhino.fi, a stablecoin infrastructure firm that partnered with Tether in 2024.
The donation was made on August 1, 2025, contributing to Reform UK’s total Q3 fundraising of £10.5 million—more than double the Conservatives’ £7 million and Labour’s £2.6 million. It’s reported as a cash transfer, not cryptocurrency, though Reform UK became the first UK party to accept crypto donations earlier this year.
Reform UK, polling strongly ahead of May 2026 local elections, has aggressively courted the crypto sector. Farage has pledged a national Bitcoin reserve if elected and publicly promoted Tether in September 2025.
The party denies any link between Harborne’s gift and its pro-crypto stance, including deregulation pushes. However, the donation has sparked scrutiny amid growing UK concerns over crypto’s role in politics.
Labour’s Pat McFadden called for a donation cap, and the Electoral Commission is reviewing crypto financing rules, with proposals to potentially ban such contributions in a forthcoming Elections Bill.
This infusion has supercharged Reform UK’s finances, enabling expanded campaigning as it challenges the establishment parties. It underscores crypto’s deepening influence on global politics, with Harborne’s total political spending nearing £21 million mostly to Reform UK/Brexit Party.
Critics, including Transparency International, warn of risks from uncapped donations reliant on a few wealthy backers. No evidence suggests impropriety, and Harborne is a permissible donor as a UK electoral register member.
The news has trended on X, with users highlighting Farage’s crypto-friendly policies as a potential catalyst for UK Bitcoin adoption if Reform gains power.
Solana Tokens Now Live on Base
Aerodrome Finance, the leading DEX and liquidity hub on Coinbase’s Base network, has officially integrated the new Base-Solana bridge.
This allows any Solana-based token— SPL tokens, including $SOL itself to be bridged over, deployed for liquidity, and traded natively on Aerodrome in seconds, without wrappers or intermediaries.
It’s a game-changer for cross-chain liquidity, blending Solana’s high-speed ecosystem with Base’s low-cost, Ethereum-aligned infrastructure.
Users bridge assets directly via the Base-Solana bridge, powered by Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) and verified by Coinbase nodes for security. Once on Base, tokens can be pooled on Aerodrome for trading, yielding, or distribution—think instant memecoin launches or DeFi strategies across chains.
Already rolling out on Aerodrome, Zora (for NFTs), Virtuals, Flaunch, and Relay Protocol. Developers can fork the open-source bridge code on GitHub to add it to their own apps. Early tests include trading $SOL, $CHILLHOUSE, and $TRENCHER natively on Base.
Creators on Solana can now tap into Coinbase’s 120M+ users for instant exposure via Aerodrome pools. This bidirectional bridge unlocks deeper liquidity pools, potentially boosting TVL on both sides.
Aerodrome’s veAERO holders will vote on emissions to incentivize these new pools, aligning rewards with cross-chain growth.
Access Base’s cheap gas ~$0.01/tx and Coinbase on-ramps without leaving your wallet. Trade Solana assets in Base dApps, then bridge back seamlessly. Instant influx of Solana’s vibrant token ecosystem supercharges liquidity. Aerodrome’s TVL could explode as it becomes the go-to meta-DEX for L2s.
Early volume is already ticking up, with $10M+ in bridged assets reported across similar bridges. If you’re a trader, head to Aerodrome’s app to test bridging a small SPL token. This could be the spark for Base flipping Solana in TVL—watch $AERO and $SOL closely.