‘I need to make money’: the story of Nigel Farage’s crypto-awakening

In December 2020, there was a new yet familiar face in the world of cryptocurrency boosters: Nigel Farage. 

These were the wilderness years for Farage. Johnson was prime minister. Brexit was done. The Brexit party was a movement looking for a new target. And Farage – according to his closest confidants at the time – needed money. 

“I’ve been studying and talking about crypto a lot more in the last few months,” he announced in a Facebook ad, surfaced by the Nerve, that was posted in December 2020 to promote his newsletter, Fortune and Freedom. The date makes it the earliest known venture by Farage into the world of cryptocurrency, but it would be far from his last. “Have you made money out of this yet?” he says, gleefully, to his crypto expert interviewee. 

The question remains: has Farage? A recently reported 2024 gift of £5m from cryptobillionaire Christopher Harborne, undisclosed by Farage, is now the subject of a parliamentary investigation. In previous reporting for our series The Harborne Receipts, investigating Harborne’s £30m in UK political donations, we have mapped Farage’s crypto policy announcements against donations to Reform, the Tories, and Farage and Johnson in person. 

Last week, we published a detailed report on Harborne’s involvement in the 2019 snap election, in which Farage stood down 317 Brexit party candidates to in effect hand Johnson’s Tories the election, and subsequently withdrew from the political frontline. Today, we reveal details of a dinner held in September 2020, attended by senior Brexit party figures, to attempt to woo Farage back into politics.

A few months before Farage’s Facebook ad was posted, and after the Brexit party had become a spent force following the 2019 election, Farage had dinner at London’s exclusive Chelsea Arts Club with former deputy Reform leader Ben Habib, and former Brexit MEPs Rupert Lowe and the late Robert Rowland, Habib has told the Nerve. The main takeaway from the dinner, according to the other attendees? That Farage needed cash.

Habib recalls: “We were trying to get Farage to come back into politics, and we basically said, ‘What do you need? Boris Johnson's getting weak at the knees.’" 

According to Habib, “Nigel said: ‘I've done this for so long, I need to make money.’ And I thought, ‘What the ****?’ I absolutely couldn't believe what I was hearing.”

In a separate conversation, Lowe confirmed Farage’s comments at the dinner, which took place in September 2020. 

(Fast forward to 2026, and the group at this dinner has turned on itself and divided into rival parties. Lowe was suspended from Reform UK and founded the even more far-right Restore Britain. Habib quit Reform in 2024 and founded his own rival, Advance UK – but announced this month he was throwing his support behind Lowe’s project.)

The apparently cash-poor Farage may have been largely absent from mainstream politics for the next few years. But he wasn’t absent from the public eye. In early 2021, he joined Cameo – a US company that allows celebrities to earn money by offering bespoke videos to the highest bidder. (His register of interests shows that in the 12 months ending December 2025, Farage charged an average of £71.75 per video, earning himself a total of £140,000 in those same 12 months, according to LBC.)

He also started his aforementioned subscription-based newsletter, Fortune and Freedom, and separately began promoting his own personal brand of red, white and blue gin through his partner Laure Ferrari’s business. 

In 2023, he controversially appeared on I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, earning him a great deal of publicity – the first episode attracted a reported 7 million viewers – and a record-breaking £1.5m paycheck.

Also added to Farage’s portfolio was his role as “brand ambassador” for gold bullion investment firm Direct Bullion, a role which involved him filming adverts for the firm for YouTube with titles such as “Nigel Farage Explains The Big Pension Secret”. This role earned him £400,000, according to parliamentary records. In the 12 months ending July 2024, Farage also earned £1.2m for his role as a presenter on GB News Ltd, according to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

He re-entered politics in 2024, becoming the leader of Reform UK and winning the seat of Clacton in that year’s general election. Around this time, Harborne appears to have ramped up his financial interest in Farage and Reform UK (the £5m personal donation was made ahead of the election) in a pattern that continued through 2025 – after Farage and Harborne flew to Donald Trump’s inauguration aboard Harborne’s private jet. There is no evidence of any quid pro quo. 

In response to detailed questions from the Nerve, Harborne’s lawyers said: “Our client has not sought to influence, nor has he influenced, any politician to support pro-crypto policies. Mr Farage has confirmed that our client has asked for ‘absolutely nothing’ in return for his donations.”

Farage was approached for comment on the allegations included in this story but did not respond. Previously he has said the £5m donation from Harborne “wasn't political in any sense at all".

Subsequent pro-crypto activity by Farage includes brandishing Reform’s new UK crypto assets and digital finance bill at a crypto event in Las Vegas in May 2025, and actively promoting the stablecoin Tether on national radio in September that year. The bill, recently deleted from Reform’s website, proposed cutting taxes on crypto profits and allowing people to pay their tax bills with the currency. 

In September 2020, by his colleagues’ account, Farage said he needed to make money. Within months he was telling his followers to get their heads around crypto. Five years and millions in donations later, Reform is proposing to cut taxes on it. Meanwhile, the standards commissioner is investigating only whether Farage should have declared Harborne’s £5m gift.