Referencing the fallout from Mr Kwarteng’s mini-Budget, Ms Turley accused Mr Farage of “hyping up a former Tory chancellor who crashed the economy, in a bid to line his own pockets”.
“From Farage’s crypto-boosting to his deputy Richard Tice’s admission that his business didn’t pay the taxes it owed, Reform are more interested in themselves than in standing up for working people,” she said.
According to The Sunday Times, a company that Richard Tice founded and owned failed to pay £91,000 in tax before dividends were paid to him.
The Reform Party said that this was the result of a “minor administrative error” and was a “non-story”.
Stack BTC is part of a fast-growing crop of Bitcoin treasury companies, businesses that are listed on regulated stock exchanges but whose primary purpose is to buy up bitcoins. Investors can then buy shares in a treasury company to gain exposure to Bitcoin without having to buy the cryptocurrency outright.
Mr Farage invested £215,000 in Stack BTC last month in return for a 6.3pc stake.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Mr Farage hit back at the Labour chairman’s criticism, describing it as an “ignorant comment from a party that has no comprehension of risk-taking and business”.
“It literally is a bet on a regulated exchange on Bitcoin. That’s exactly what it is. The price goes up, I make money, it goes down, I’ll lose. So what?” Mr Farage said. “This Government needs to wake up and get into the 21st century.”
Mr Farage’s investment in Stack BTC was part of a broader £260,000 fundraising round that valued the company at around £3.4m. After this latest purchase, Stack BTC now holds 68 bitcoins worth roughly £3.6m.
The politician has been a vocal advocate of the UK’s crypto industry. Last year, he branded Bank of England officials “dinosaur bureaucrats” who were stifling growth by curbing cryptocurrency ownership.
Reform UK has vowed to transform Britain into a “crypto hub” by slashing taxes on cryptocurrencies, creating a sovereign Bitcoin reserve and accepting tax payments in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
It has also started accepting donations in crypto. It received £12m from Christopher Harborne, a British Bitcoin investor based in Thailand, last year.
Recently, Labour said it would ban cryptocurrency donations to UK political parties and would cap donations from British citizens living abroad to £100,000 annually.
The Labour Party has urged the electoral watchdog to investigate Reform over the donations from Mr Harborne, saying the party has “serious questions to answer”.