A secretive crypto company that bought more gold last year than any other entity on the planet keeps its stash in a James Bond-style Swiss former nuclear bunker. That company, Tether, also owns as much US government debt as some G20 nations – $135bn (£101bn), more than South Korea – yet employs just 200 people. And it is, perhaps inadvertently, entangled in the questions around the funding of Nigel Farage's Reform party.
Tether runs USDT, the world's biggest stablecoin – a form of cryptocurrency backed by hard currency that serves as a conduit between volatile crypto and conventional finance. It is so big it has been described as almost a private central bank. One of its significant shareholders is Christopher Harborne.
“Tether, the world's biggest stablecoin firm, bought more gold than any other entity last year and is linked to Reform UK's biggest donor.”
Last August, Harborne gave £9m in cash to Reform – the largest single party donation in British history. He added £3m in October and another £3m in January. All were declared. But Harborne had also given £5m directly to Farage, a previously undisclosed personal gift that became the subject of parliamentary investigations before Farage resigned as an MP. Both men have said there were no strings attached to any of the payments.
Farage has spoken openly about embracing cryptocurrencies. "Tether is about to be valued as a $500bn company," he told LBC presenter Nick Ferrari. And last September, he raised the issue of cryptocurrency regulation with the Bank of England's governor, Andrew Bailey. Bailey confirmed the conversation happened, saying Farage made his views "very clear", but that the "intervention" did not change the Bank's policy. Bailey added that he could spot "lobbying" and knew how to discount it.
According to the Bank governor, Farage was specifically concerned about speculation that the Bank would push ahead with a limit on holdings of potential sterling stablecoins of between £10,000 and £20,000 – a cap the industry was lobbying hard against. Farage did not raise Tether by name, but he did discuss stablecoin regulation in general. That raises reasonable questions about the precise details of the conversation and the scope for any possible benefit to Tether and its shareholders from shifts in Bank of England policy.