It was late on a Friday night last September and Ant Middleton, the ex-special forces soldier, had an exciting announcement to make. He had launched a cryptocurrency token and fans could now buy in.
Middleton, a military veteran, former TV presenter, and now better known as a far-right activist associated with Reform UK, promoted the digital token, named ANT Coin, on his social media feeds into the early hours.
Every following day, he kept this up, sharing exciting details about how people who bought his token would get to meet him in person and join “an exclusive chat with myself and my team”. Buyers would also help to fund his independent campaign to become the mayor of London in 2028.
ANT Coin was meant to be different to the memecoins and so-called “shitcoins” that give the digital currency world an unsavoury reputation. The token’s website praised Middleton as a “respected leader” who focused on “integrity, discipline, and commitment to the people”.
But after just nine days, without explanation, he stopped promoting the token. The price of ANT Coin plummeted. And Middleton hasn’t mentioned it since.
A HOPE not hate analysis has found that Middleton’s token (in which he partnered with a convicted drug trafficker) exhibits signs often seen with so-called “pump and dump” schemes which take advantage of gullible online traders.
Middleton has a huge public profile. He became a household name with his Channel 4 show, SAS: Who Dares Wins, but was dropped in 2021 after calling the Black Lives Matter movement “absolute scum” (for which he apologised). Since then Middleton has embarked on a new career as a far-right activist. He spoke at Unite The Kingdom, the rally organised by Stephen Yaxley Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) last year. “You can’t be a Muslim and be in charge of a Christian nation/city,” he has said. “1st, 2nd & 3rd generation immigrants should not hold top-tier government positions.”
One of his main topics of discussion is that Britain is on the brink of civil war, in which he casts himself as a leader. “Who is behind me to give the ultimate sacrifice?” he wrote on X. And he told a podcaster:
“My ear is very close to the ground mate. If I could tell the people how temperamental things are right now in the UK… If someone gave a certain order and there’s a few influential people at ground level, not talking about government, politics, MoD, I’m talking about ground level. If we gave a certain order, all hell would erupt in the UK.”
Middleton campaigned for Reform in Makerfield last month, spoke at the party’s 2024 conference and hinted that he is keen to contest an election for it. He joined Nigel Farage and the Reform treasurer Nick Candy on a trip to Donald Trump’s second inauguration.
And last September, on the night of the 12th, he had big news for his 530,000 followers on X. This was seemingly the first time he mentioned ANT Coin, listing its address and saying it was available for purchase. “A new form of political funding is underway and it comes down to the power of the crypto community to shake up the establishment!”
In trading ANT Coin, fans of Middleton could support his campaign to become London mayor. Each transaction of the token would be taxed at 3%. This meant that any time it was bought or sold, Middleton would receive a cut — which would, he said, be used to pay for his election expenses. “To ensure transparency, every contribution will be publicly tracked on the campaign website,” said promotional material for the token.
Middleton continued to promote ANT Coin overnight, uploading a video saying his token was a “huge announcement”. In the following hours and days, he said that everyone who bought in would not only get the chance to meet him and “share ideas” but be invited into his private group chat.
There is no indication that this chat exists, nor that ANT Coin holders got to meet him, nor that contributions were tracked on the campaign website. In advance of this article, we sent Middleton and his team multiple requests for comment by email and social media, but he did not reply.
Social media influencers who launch their own tokens are often accused of running a “pump-and-dump”. These are schemes where celebrities create a buying frenzy by excitedly promoting a digital currency to their fans. The price pumps up, the creators dump their assets, and the value drops. The influencers earn a ton of money. The fans end up owning tokens with no worth. This practice is illegal in the stock market but, like much else in the world of crypto, here it is unregulated.
When one of Middleton’s fans accused ANT Coin of being a “scam”, he posted an emphatic denial. “It can’t be pumped and dumped,” he said. “It wouldn’t make sense anyway as it’s a political support token and my political career has barely started!”
His website explained exactly what ANT Coin was going to be. “This isn’t just about funding campaigns,” the page said, “it’s about reshaping democracy and building a transparent, community-driven future.”
That future ended after little more than a week.
Ant Middleton isn’t known as a crypto expert, and on a livestream to promote ANT Coin, he admitted as much. Instead, he acknowledged the support of his brother, Michael Middleton. “My brother Mikey,” Ant said, “he got into it a lot earlier than myself and mentored me into the space.”
When Michael spoke on the livestream, he said that fans of his brother and his political career could “back the cause independently”. By purchasing ANT Coin, listeners could support his upcoming mayoral bid. “We want to use his funds transparently that he’s able to raise to highlight and enhance his campaign,” Michael said.
Ant was insistent about two things. First, ANT Coin wasn’t just a flash in the pan. “This token isn’t going anywhere for the next decade,” he said. Second, his fans could rely on him not to exploit them. “I have to be transparent to the people,” Ant explained. “It’s all about the community and it’s all about trust.”
What he failed to mention, and that listeners might have found pertinent when it came to earning their trust, was a key detail about his mentor brother. In 2020, Michael was jailed for smuggling seven kilograms of cocaine into Britain. After driving in from France, he was arrested handing a rucksack filled with drugs to a dealer. Police officers seized the stash and £7,000 stashed in his partner’s glovebox. Michael received a prison sentence of three years and five months.
As a crypto expert, Michael said he was now helping to “guide” his brother through this exciting new world. Ant credited him with his knowledge of the industry and for ensuring that the token they created was totally legitimate. “This is where I lean heavily on my brother Michael, making sure that nothing can be rugged, nothing can be pulled” — other terms for crypto scams — “that everything is sealed tight before I got involved in this.”
Ant himself has been banned from being a company director, after his business failed to pay more than £1 million in tax.
In preparing this article, we sent a list of detailed questions to Middleton and his team, but they went unanswered. As a result, we can’t say for certain what really happened with ANT Coin. Crypto trades are anonymous, and we were unable to verify any customers who complained about losing money by purchasing the token.
Was it a token that launched and ended in good faith? Was it a visionary method of funding political campaigns that unfortunately failed? Or was it a get-rich-quick scheme with no grander intention beyond separating fans from their money? There may well be an innocent explanation for this. In the absence of his explanation, we are left with serious questions: if ANT Coin was launched only with the best of intentions, why did Middleton stop talking about it after a matter of days? Why is it no longer possible to buy ANT Coin? And why hasn’t he explained its short life span to us? Ultimately, we don’t know. And until Middleton answers, we likely won’t.
ANT Coin was first promoted on Ant Middleton’s X account at 11.54pm on 12 September 2025. However, the token was created eight minutes earlier at 11.46pm. Analysis of ANT Coin’s trading history shows that in the brief window between launch and promotion, the token was already being purchased in large volumes. By our estimation, 200 purchases were made at an approximate value of $150,000 in these eight minutes. Many of the transactions were made in relatively small amounts, making it hard to identify who might own it. However, as we can find no other mention by Middleton of ANT Coin during this flurry of purchases, we suspect that people with prior knowledge of the token’s creation made these trades.
When Middleton promoted ANT Coin, he said he had partnered with an agency called Forge, which calls itself a token launchpad. Forge’s website is limited, but appears to create memecoins and fan tokens on behalf of influencers. A number of similar schemes have appeared in which American social media personalities have partnered with agencies, leveraging their online followings in exchange for a cut of the proceeds.
Ten big sales of ANT Coin took place one minute after Middleton’s first announcement of the token on 12th September. Each one had an equivalent value greater than $3,000. The total of these ten sales was approximately $46,000 and took place over a 30-second period. We cannot say for sure if Middleton was linked to these trades.
Carol Alexander, professor of finance at the University of Sussex, said ANT Coin exhibited signs of being a “pump-and-dump” scheme. She said:
“The data analysis shows that $ANT followed the typical pattern: (1) large quantities of the token are held by the creators; (2) minutes later social media hypes up its price; (3) FOMO (fear of missing out) spurs fans (in this case) to buy, in quantity; (4) Once the price has risen sufficiently, the all the creators sell their holdings, making massive profits; (5) the price plummets and everyone stops buying — and the fans that bought the tokens are left holding a worthless asset.”
Middleton is not the first far-right activist to market a token to his fans. At Unite The Kingdom, Stephen Lennon’s official livestream promoted a number of different crypto offerings. Last month, he posted about a token called The Patriotic Bull. “I’ve not been hacked,” Lennon wrote, “I’m just letting my son pump his crypto. I feel like a wanker writing these posts 😂😂” There is no suggestion that The Patriotic Bull is unlawful.
As mentioned above, Middleton did not reply to our invitations to comment. When we were trying to contact him, he continued to post on X. “London,” he wrote, “You are in for a shock when I take over! I’ll flatten the place and rebuild it!”
Prefer to listen? Click the play button to hear the audio version. Harry Shukman Reform UK is staffed by oddballs and enigmas, but none odder…
