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Ben Delo
Delo at The Spectator's "Who’s afraid of Bitcoin?” conference, October 2018
Delo in 2018
Born
Ben Peter Delo

(1984-02-24) 24 February 1984 (age 40)
Sheffield, England
EducationLord Williams's School
Worcester College, Oxford (BA)
Occupation(s)computer programmer, entrepreneur
Known forCo-founding BitMEX

Ben Delo (/diːloʊ/, born 24 February 1984) is a British entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and former executive of BitMEX. In 2022, Delo pleaded guilty to a United States Bank Secrecy Act violation and received a 30-month probation sentence.

Early life and education

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Delo was born in Sheffield, England. He was educated at Lord Williams's School and graduated from the University of Oxford in 2005 with a double first-class honours degree in Mathematics and Computer Science.[1]

Career

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Delo began his career as a software engineer at IBM, where he was named as an inventor on several patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office and the Intellectual Property Office.[2] He went on to develop high-frequency trading systems at hedge funds and banks such as GSA Capital and J.P. Morgan, dealing predominantly in kdb+/Q.[3]

In 2014, Delo met Arthur Hayes and Sam Reed, and they co-founded BitMEX, a cryptocurrency derivatives trading platform.[4] In 2018, The Times reported that Delo was the United Kingdom's youngest self-made billionaire.[5][6] As noted in a 2020 IPSO complaint, The Times removed a reference that he had been included in the 2018 Sunday Times Rich List.[7]

In August 2022, Izabella Kaminska at Bloomberg described Delo as "the BitMEX co-founder most responsible for the perpetual swap’s invention."[8]

Bank Secrecy Act violation

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On 1 October 2020, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the US Department of Justice charged BitMEX and its co-founders, including Delo, with various violations of American law. Delo and three others were charged with violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to implement an adequate anti-money laundering program. The regulators alleged that the BitMEX trading platform was required to have registered aspects of its operations in the US and had failed to do so.[9]

In March 2021, Delo traveled to the United States and surrendered himself to authorities in New York. He pleaded not guilty to the charges and was bailed on a $20 million bond before being allowed to return to the United Kingdom.[10][11] On 24 February 2022, the Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced that Delo and his BitMEX cofounder had each pled guilty to one Bank Secrecy Act violation for "willfully failing to establish, implement, and maintain an anti-money laundering ('AML') program at BitMEX". Under the terms of their plea agreements, Delo and his co-founders each agreed to pay a $10 million civil monetary penalty to the CFTC.[12][13] On 16 June 2022, Delo was sentenced to 30 months' probation.[14]

Philanthropy

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In October 2018, Delo gave £5 million to his Oxford alma mater Worcester College, endowing two teaching fellowships in perpetuity and becoming the youngest major donor in the College's history.[15][16] At the same time, the College elected him into an Honorary Fellowship in recognition of his work in computing and his philanthropy.[15]In April 2019, Delo signed the Giving Pledge, announcing his intention to give away at least half of his wealth during his lifetime being inspired by the philosophy of effective altruism.[17] That month, Delo also became a member of Giving What We Can.[18][19] In March 2020, Delo and Effective Giving funded a project led by the University of Oxford to survey of community-based infection of COVID-19 in the UK.[20] Delo is associated with Mersenne.org and the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, a collaborative internet project to find Mersenne prime numbers.[21]

In 2023, he established the Ben Delo Commonwealth Leadership Programme, a scholarship initiative for postgraduate studies at King's College London.[22][23]

References

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  1. ^ Ciralsky, Adam (4 February 2021). "The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin Billionaire Arthur Hayes". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 22 December 2022.
  2. ^ "Google Patents". patents.google.com.
  3. ^ "Bored With Banking, This Former Citi Trader Went Full Crypto". Bloomberg L.P. 1 February 2018.
  4. ^ Reilly, Damian (10 November 2018). "Breaking the bank - Who's afraid of bitcoin?". The Spectator. Retrieved 17 December 2022.
  5. ^ Urwin, Rosamund (1 July 2018). "Where's Wallet? Can you spot Ben Delo, the UK's first bitcoin billionaire?". The Times.
  6. ^ Urwin, Rosamund (7 July 2023). "Where's Wallet? Can you spot Ben Delo, the UK's first bitcoin billionaire?". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 7 July 2023.
  7. ^ "Resolution Statement – 29243-20 Delo v The Times". Independent Press Standards Organisation. 29 March 2021. Retrieved 17 December 2022.
  8. ^ "The Crypto Innovation Traditional Finance Needs". Bloomberg.com. 31 August 2022. Retrieved 7 November 2023.
  9. ^ Stempel, Jonathan (1 October 2020). "U.S. charges BitMEX cryptocurrency founders with failing to prevent money laundering". Reuters. New York. Archived from the original on 1 October 2020. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  10. ^ Maishera, Hassan (16 March 2021). "Bitmex co-founder Ben Delo surrenders to US authorities". CoinText. Retrieved 22 December 2022.
  11. ^ "SDNY Court Document 15 March 2021" (PDF). Southern District of New York. 15 March 2021. Retrieved 22 December 2022.
  12. ^ "Founders Of Cryptocurrency Exchange Plead Guilty To Bank Secrecy Act Violations". United States Department of Justice. 24 February 2022. Retrieved 25 February 2022.
  13. ^ "Co-Founders Ordered to Pay $10 Million Each". Commodity Futures Trading Commission. 5 May 2022. Release Number 8522-22. Retrieved 21 December 2022.
  14. ^ Vanderford, Richard (15 June 2022). "BitMEX Co-Founder Sentenced to Probation on U.S. Compliance Charge". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 7 January 2023.
  15. ^ a b "Ben Delo gives £5 million to the College". Worcester College, Oxford. 26 October 2018. Retrieved 22 December 2022.
  16. ^ "Defendant Benjamin Delo's Sentencing Memorandum" (PDF). Foley Hoag LLP, Smith Villazor LLP. 1 June 2022. Retrieved 17 December 2022.
  17. ^ Delo, Ben (15 April 2019). "Ben Delo". The Giving Pledge. Retrieved 17 June 2019.
  18. ^ "Co-funding Partnership with Ben Delo". Open Philanthropy. 11 November 2019. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
  19. ^ "List of Giving What We Can Pledge Members". www.givingwhatwecan.org. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
  20. ^ "Researchers to determine community COVID-19 infection rates in the UK using serology, PCR and Nanopore Sequencing Technology". Oxford Department of Zoology. 4 April 2020. Archived from the original on 30 November 2020.
  21. ^ "PrimeNet - Customized Top Producers". www.mersenne.org. Retrieved 31 May 2023.
  22. ^ "Scholarships | International School for Government | King's College London". www.kcl.ac.uk. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
  23. ^ London, King's College. "New scholarship programme for Commonwealth civil servants launched". King's College London. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
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