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. It plans to use Delo’s £25m gift as an endowment to secure its future and strengthen its grantmaking capacity. Coates was also credited with developing a model for integrating autistic children into mainstream schools. “The support I received from Sheila Coates was genuinely transformative to my education and future outlook,” he said.

Source: The Times February 20, 2026 13:12 UTC