The founder of a global cryptocurrency platform has donated £25m to a charity he set up in 2020 to support autistic young people in England.
Ben Delo, who co-founded BitMEX in 2014, named the Sheila Coates Foundation (SCF) after the late advocate for children with autism from whom he had received support as a child.
SCF, which has recorded annual incomes and expenditures of between £250,000 and £750,000 since it was set up, claims to support more than 25,000 young people at 600 schools and colleges.
It plans to use Delo’s £25m gift as an endowment to secure its future and strengthen its grantmaking capacity.
Delo was pardoned by president Donald Trump last year after serving a 30-month probation sentence following his guilty plea to violating the United States’ Bank Secrecy Act in 2022.
The violation relates solely to a failure to implement and maintain a compliance programme relevant only to the US.
Donation ‘secures charity’s future’
Stephen McShane, SCF chief executive, praised the donation from Delo, previously described by the Times as the UK’s “youngest self-made billionaire”.
“We are honoured to have received this endowment from Ben Delo,” said McShane.
“It secures our future […] Thanks to this endowment we can create lasting change for autistic young people.”
Sheila Coates was an advocate for children with autism and their families in Oxfordshire who co-founded the charity Children in Touch in 1977.
Coates was also credited with developing a model for integrating autistic children into mainstream schools.
Delo, who was diagnosed with Asperger’s at age 11, praised the support he received from Coates and the work of his charity, where he is one of seven trustees.
“The support I received from Sheila Coates was genuinely transformative to my education and future outlook,” he said.
“This foundation, established in her memory, has had an incredible impact since its inception and I am looking forward to watching it grow.”
