Ben Delo

Born in Sheffield, Delo 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.[2]

About Delo's high-achieving yet idiosyncratic character, Worcester College's Provost Sir Jonathan Bate later commented: "He overcame great difficulties in his school career to win a place at Oxford from a local state school, and went on to a stellar performance – as well as a sometimes colourful career – as a student."[2]

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.[3]

He then 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.[4] His expertise covers the design, architecture, and implementation of quantitative infrastructure, systems, and tools.

In 2014, Delo met Arthur Hayes and Sam Reed, and they co-founded BitMEX, a cryptocurrency derivatives trading platform.[5]

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.[2]

In April 2019, Delo signed The Giving Pledge, a programme orchestrated by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, announcing his intention to give away at least half of his wealth during his lifetime. In his pledge letter, Delo states that his initial philanthropic interests are focused on long-term and large-scale problems and reducing catastrophic risks, and that he is inspired by the philosophy of effective altruism.[6]

That month, Delo also became a member of Giving What We Can, a community of people who have pledged to give at least 10% of their income to effective charities.[7][8]

In March 2020, in collaboration with Oxford University, Delo initiated and funded a cross-sectional survey, using nanopore technology (which sequences the whole genome of pathogens) as a diagnostic tool, to determine and level of community-based infection of COVID-19 in the UK. According to Professor Mike Bonsall, “Using rapid diagnostics, we will explore a new method of pathogen detection, which if widely adopted could prove crucial to early containment of future novel disease outbreaks.”[9]

On 1 October 2020, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the US Department of Justice simultaneously formally charged BitMEX and its co-founders, including Ben Delo, with various violations of American law. Delo and three others were criminally charged with violating the Bank Secrecy Act for allegedly failing to implement an adequate anti-money laundering program. Further, 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. According to a spokesman for BitMEX’s parent company, Delo and his co-founders “intend to defend the allegations vigorously”.[10]

• Ben Delo on Bloomberg