Crypto Founder Gives £25M to Autism Charity He Started

Ben Delo just handed his autism charity the gift that will keep it running for generations to come.

The BitMEX co-founder donated £25 million to the Sheila Coates Foundation, the charity he established in 2020 to support autistic young people in England. The massive endowment will secure the organization's future and expand its ability to make grants to schools and programs.

Delo named the foundation after Sheila Coates, an advocate who championed autistic children in Oxfordshire for decades. After being diagnosed with Asperger's at age 11, Delo received life-changing support from Coates herself.

"The support I received from Sheila Coates was genuinely transformative to my education and future outlook," Delo said. He's now one of seven trustees working to honor her legacy.

The foundation currently supports more than 25,000 young people at 600 schools and colleges across England. Until now, it operated on annual budgets between £250,000 and £750,000, but this endowment changes everything.

Sheila Coates co-founded the charity Children in Touch in 1977 and pioneered a model for integrating autistic children into mainstream schools. Her work created pathways for countless young people who might otherwise have been left behind.

Delo co-founded BitMEX, a global cryptocurrency platform, in 2014. His journey since then has included challenges, including a probation sentence for failing to implement compliance programs required by US law, but he received a presidential pardon last year.

The Ripple Effect

This endowment does more than just fund programs. It gives the foundation stability to plan long-term initiatives and reach even more families who need support. Stephen McShane, the foundation's chief executive, praised the donation's transformative potential: "It secures our future and thanks to this endowment we can create lasting change for autistic young people."

When someone pays forward the support that changed their life, thousands of futures brighten alongside their own.