Christopher Harborne, the single largest donor in UK party politics history, controls a reported 12% stake in Tether, the stablecoin issuer behind roughly $184 billion in circulating USDT. Harborne has funnelled more than £24 million to Reform UK and its predecessor movements since 2019, including a record £9 million donation in late 2025. But this week, the UK government effectively closed the door on that kind of money: a new annual cap of £100,000 on donations from British citizens living abroad, and a blanket moratorium on all crypto donations to political parties, took effect March 25, 2026.
The man behind the millions
Harborne is British-born, Cambridge-educated, and has lived in Thailand since 1996, where he goes by the Thai name Chakrit Sakunkrit and holds Thai citizenship. He started buying Bitcoin in 2011 and became a major Ethereum holder by 2014. Tether, the company he partly owns, generates roughly $10 billion in annual profit. His £9 million donation to Reform UK in late 2025 was confirmed by the Electoral Commission as the largest single contribution by a living person to a UK political party.
New rules on expat and crypto donations
The measures are written into the Representation of the People Bill with retrospective effect. British citizens living abroad who remain on the electoral register can now donate no more than £100,000 per year. And all crypto donations to UK political parties are subject to an immediate moratorium — no exceptions. That’s a direct hit for Reform UK, which has accepted donations in BTC and other digital assets. Parties have 30 days to return any non-compliant donations before criminal enforcement begins.
Farage’s pitch to crypto voters
The timing isn’t great for Nigel Farage. He has promised a state-owned Bitcoin reserve, a 10% flat capital gains tax on crypto, and significant deregulation of the digital asset sector. Those pledges helped attract Harborne’s money and rally crypto-skeptical voters. Now the party can’t take any more digital-asset donations — and its biggest backer faces a hard cap.
Foreign interference fears
The crackdown follows the Rycroft Review, published March 25, 2026, which found that the UK faces a persistent and worsening problem of foreign financial interference in its political system. While Harborne is a British citizen, his Thai residency and the sheer scale of his donations — combined with his role at a global stablecoin issuer — made him a lightning rod. The Review didn’t name him, but the new law draws a line that his contributions now cross.
What happens next
The 30-day clock is ticking. Reform UK will have to decide whether to return any crypto donations already in its coffers, and Harborne’s future giving is now capped at £100,000 annually — a fraction of the sums he’s written before. The Electoral Commission is expected to publish guidance on how parties should treat existing digital-asset holdings. For now, the UK’s most crypto-friendly party just lost its most crypto-friendly donor pipeline.
