Unite the Rugpull?

An investigation of the cryptocurrency connections of Tommy Robinson and his recent ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally

PIMLICO JOURNAL

What was, and is, Unite the Kingdom?

On 13 September 2025, there was a very large political rally in central London. Estimates of attendance vary (the organisers rather fancifully claimed 3,000,000 people), but it was undoubtedly impressive: even The Guardian estimates that between 110,000 and 150,000 people attended. This rally, or festival as it was advertised, was organised by Unite the Kingdom, an affiliate offshoot of Urban Scoop.

Urban Scoop is a right-wing media organisation headed by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson. Unite the Kingdom is promoted on its website as being about ‘Celebrating Our Heritage’, ‘Defending Our Freedoms’, and ‘…a national movement dedicated to celebrating Britain’s rich history, culture, and Christian heritage.’

Though Unite the Kingdom retroactively labels Urban Scoop events on 27 July 2024 and 1 February 2025 as being Unite the Kingdom events, the 13 September 2025 rally is the first to use the term ‘Unite the Kingdom’ and have the letters ‘UTK’ in Union Jack livery on stage and as watermarks on the official livestream. Unite the Kingdom began as a merchandise brand in December 2024, with the first mentions of a supposed ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally being in June 2025.

The beginning of an investigation

We originally observed the rally with interest, and perhaps even approval, being as it was the expression of the nationalistic fervor of thousands upon thousands of patriotic Britons. However, a number of strange watermarks covering portions of the screen over viral clips from this rally soon sent us into a manic, fully-fledged, journalistic pursuit of the truth. Once we confirmed it was the official livestream which had these watermarks attached, we started digging into the nature of those who were sponsoring, or being advertised at, Tommy Robinson’s rally.

The three watermarks in question, ‘Athena Bitcoin’, ‘JUSTFOMO.COM’, and ‘$UTK UTKCOIN.COM’, are visible throughout the official livestream on X from the first frame. This livestream was pinned to Elon Musk’s X account for over twenty-four hours in a post that currently has 42.6 million impressions. At least one hundred thousand attended in real life, and millions watched the rally online across different platforms. The amount of people potentially exposed to these three advertisements for any amount of time is vast.

This article puts these three questions to readers:

1. How sincere were the organisers of the event with respect to the stated aims of the Unite the Kingdom rally?
2. How much did the organisers know about the organisations whose advertisements were present on the official livestream almost from start to finish?
3. What was Unite the Kingdom’s real purpose?

What are Athena Bitcoin, JUSTFOMO.COM, and $UTK UTKCOIN.COM?

But to answer these questions, we first need to answer another question: what are these strange watermarks advertising?

Athena Bitcoin

Athena Bitcoin Incorporated, or Athena Bitcoin Global, or simply Athena, is a Nevada-based ATM company purporting to provide Bitcoin purchasing services. On their website, it is clear they have a presence in Central and South America — specifically El Salvador, the first country in the world to use bitcoin as legal tender. The Attorney General for the District of Columbia, Brian Schwalb, sued Athena Bitcoin Incorporated on 8 September 2025, just five days before the Unite the Kingdom rally. The Office of the Attorney General stated that Athena Bitcoin’s services ‘…appeal to criminals because Athena fails to provide effective oversight, creating an unchecked opportunity for illicit international fraud.’

In the suit, the Office of the Attorney General alleged that:

1. 93% of all Athena Bitcoin Automated Teller Machine (BTM) deposits were the direct result of scams.
2. Nearly half of all deposits were flagged to Athena as the product of fraud.
3. The victims’ median age was 71.

Crucially, Attorney General Schwalb stated that ‘…Athena knows that its machines are being used primarily by scammers yet chooses to look the other way so that it can continue to pocket sizeable hidden transaction fees’ (emphasis added).

Athena Bitcoin did not make any appearance on Tommy Robinson’s social media accounts in the lead up to the Unite the Kingdom rally; however, it did have a physical sideboard with its logo attached to the right-hand side of the main stage screen, in addition to an ever-present watermark on the official livestream.

Who is gaining from having this company silently, yet overtly, advertised on Unite the Kingdom’s official rally stream? How did this come about? Who is involved with whom?

JUSTFOMO.COM

JUSTFOMO.COM, or JUST FOMO LTD, is a UK-based Private Limited Company (PLC) purportedly offering crypto news and educational courses. On its website, JUSTFOMO also advertises an Ethereum-based cryptocurrency ($FOMO). The company was incorporated on 22 June 2025, with a registered address at 50 Princes Street, Ipswich, England, IP1 1RJ. The founder and owner is Mr Ashley Ward. Due to how recently the company was incorporated, its accounts are not available for scrutiny (with its first year needing to be filed by 5 July 2026 and 22 March 2027 for confirmation and accounts respectively).

However, upon checking JUSTFOMO’s Instagram account, which heavily features AI-generated images of gorillas, a much longer history emerges. The account’s first post is dated to November 2023, nineteen months before the incorporation of JUST FOMO LTD. Likewise, when JUSTFOMO.com is put into an online domain age checker, it returns an origin date of November 2023 also.

This may be because JUST FOMO LTD is only the latest face of an older operation. FOMO NETWORK LTD, incorporated in November 2023, was also founded by Mr Ashley Ward, with a registered address at 3rd Floor, 86-90 Paul Street, London, England, United Kingdom, EC2A 4NE. On 10 November 2024, Mr Craig Hayes was named as the new director of FOMO NETWORK LTD, with Mr Ward ceasing activity and relinquishing control of the company on the same day. Mr Craig Hayes also has the same registered address as Mr Ward. FOMO NETWORK LTD’s accounts have been overdue since 15 August 2025.

Beginning on 2 September 2025, social media posts on Instagram and X connected to JUSTFOMO stated they were sponsoring the Unite the Kingdom event on 13 September 2025. Interestingly, on 7 September 2025 a separate entity named VetaChain (henceforth Veta) came into being. The very first thing it did was to announce that it was also a sponsor of the Unite the Kingdom rally. On Veta’s Instagram, the bio implies it is somehow part of a new social media company that is free of censorship. Similarities between the TikTok accounts of JUSTFOMO and Veta suggest that they are operated by the same people, with both accounts using the same AI-voiced video promoting the Unite the Kingdom rally — in fact, the videos are identical, save for the green (Veta) or purple (JUSTFOMO) overlay differentiating the two. Ashley Ward promoted both on his own personal X account.

In the end, only JUSTFOMO.COM appeared as a watermark, with nothing of Veta. Neither JUSTFOMO nor Vetachain made any appearance on Tommy Robinson’s social media accounts in the lead up to the Unite the Kingdom rally. However, Tommy Robinson did quote-tweet Veta’s X account posting about the rally on 15 September 2025. That account has, as of time of writing, just 455 followers.

Who is gaining from having this company silently, yet overtly, advertised on Unite the Kingdom’s official rally stream? How did this come about? Who is involved with whom?

$UTK UTKCOIN.COM

UTKCoin, or just $UTK, is a Solana-based cryptocurrency project. An online domain age checker dates the website to 31 August 2025, thirteen days before the Unite the Kingdom Rally on 13 September 2025. The website explains that it was created to support Unite the Kingdom’s aims (as presented earlier), using the cryptocurrency platform Bags.fm and its transaction fee system to personally benefit Tommy Robinson: a 1% transaction fee is charged on each buy and sell order of $UTK, with 85% of that 1% transaction fee (i.e., 0.85%) purportedly given directly to Tommy Robinson, and 15% (i.e., 0.15%) going towards ‘project development, operational costs, and further ecosystem growth’. UTK’s X account revealed the recipient of the slice which is not given directly to Tommy Robinson to be an individual named Luke, with his own X account.

$UTK has a total supply of 1,000,000,000 tokens. The cryptocurrency was created on 29 August 2025 by Luke, and the first purchase was made of 32,904,159 coins at the price of $0.000006033 each. $UTK reached an all time high of $0.003505 at 20:04 on 13 September, shortly after the Unite the Kingdom rally had concluded. That’s a 57,997.1% increase in value. The highest-value purchase of $UTK was also made right after the rally at 19:03, when a ‘whale’ purchased 8,753,280 tokens for $47,180.93. The market cap of the coin has massively fluctuated accordingly, but as per CoinGecko, it peaked at around $2.6 million. As of time of writing, less than one week from the all-time high, the market cap is now around $260,000 — or in other words, a fall to 10% of peak value for those who excitedly bought coins at the rally’s conclusion and held onto them. It is, of course, true that the value of $UTK may begin to rise again — it hasn’t become dust, with the project abandoned — but the very real potential for a large loss of money should you invest into $UTK is clear; equally, should you buy and sell at the right time, the potential for very large gains is also clear.

$UTK announced they were an official sponsor of the Unite the Kingdom rally on 10 September. Tommy Robinson extensively promoted the $UTK X account, often quote-tweeting it or those behind it in the days preceding the event. On the day, Robinson thanked $UTK for providing the funds necessary to hire a helicopter to film the rally. Robinson appears to have recorded himself participating in the rally, saying ‘you hired that’ whilst pointing his phone camera at the helicopter overhead. This video only appears on the $UTK X account, suggesting he may have sent it to them directly in order for them to exclusively post it.

The extent to which $UTK (the cryptocurrency) is separate from Unite the Kingdom (the organisation, as part of Urban Scoop) is a matter for debate. The branding is nearly identical, using the same font and general ‘look’ for both logos. Since the rally, Tommy Robinson has continued to use the $UTK Coin logo (rather than the original Unite the Kingdom logo, without a dollar sign and website URL beneath) opposite the Urban Scoop logo, as seen by this X post on 16 September 2025 and every single photograph posted in this thread on 15 September 2025.

How much money is actually being made on this project by the creators? It’s hard to say, but $UTK has garnered enough attention to have copycats. There are currently at least eight different tokens named ‘Unite the Kingdom’ on the Solana network according to DEX Screener, all with Union Jack branding.

Some of the websites for these copycat coins feature imagery of Nigel Farage and claim that ‘Jordan Peterson is attending’ the rally. These aren’t fan sites promoting Tommy Robinson’s official token: these are hastily-assembled imitations attempting to swindle Solana from confused Robinson fans purchasing cryptocurrency for the first time. On one copycat’s website, the term ‘KOL’ is used in its attempt to convince the viewer of its own authenticity as the real $UTK. KOL is a term primarily used by Chinese social media users (the term means ‘Key Opinion Leader’, and originates on Sina Weibo, a social media site that is very popular in China, but is hardly used elsewhere).

The international attention from cryptomarket operators shows the size of Tommy Robinson’s influence, the scale of Unite the Kingdom’s rally, and the sums of money that were likely involved in the real $UTK.

What is the connection between Tommy Robinson and $UTK?

$UTK’s involvement with Unite the Kingdom is clear and very public. How detached Tommy Robinson is personally from $UTK’s activities is a matter for discussion.

Tommy Robinson appeared on no less than eleven X Spaces (each averaging an hour long) to promote the cryptocurrency. These X Spaces were attended by various crypto personalities, mostly from the United States, that had no previous record of association with Tommy Robinson or his politics. The specific individuals who are probably behind $UTK will be discussed further later in this article.

For the purposes of our investigation we have listened to all the $UTK X Spaces and selected some of the most noteworthy comments on the coin from Robinson. This was laborious, but is necessary to understand clearly what has occurred (and is occurring) with $UTK and Unite the Kingdom. If any illuminating quotes were missed, it is due to the sheer quantity of audio we had to analyse.

$UTK had their first X Space on 31 August; however, that account was suspended and so we have no access to the audio recording — we only know that Tommy Robinson was present. For the purposes of this article going forward, the X Space on 1 September will be considered $UTK’s first X Space.

Tommy Robinson’s statements in these Spaces can be generally categorised as follows:

1. Proclamation of ignorance regarding cryptocurrency.
2. Plausible deniability, alluding to potential loss of funds should you invest in $UTK.
3. Suggesting that there is value in investing in crypto due to so-called debanking; or the money invested is more secure outside of a traditional bank account.
4. Suggesting he, or causes he cares about, could benefit should people purchase $UTK, due to him personally benefiting from buy/sell order transaction fees; or more generally generally hyping up $UTK or the idea of getting into cryptocurrency trading to get rich.
5. Hyping up Unite the Kingdom’s 13 September rally and alluding to future, larger, successive rallies.

These will be marked as (1), (2), (3), (4), or (5) below. We have also included some other interesting comments from Robinson that do not fall into any of these categories.

$UTK’s 1st X Space, 1 September 2025:

3m: ‘I know nothing about crypto, (1) but I’ve been debanked by every single bank possible (3)’ … ‘I understand the need for something like this, decentralised banking (3), I just know nothing about it’ (1) … ‘I don’t know if a coin is going to go up or down, (2) I don’t understand any of it, (1) but if there is a transaction fee that benefits the Unite the Kingdom movement.’ (4)

4m: ‘Going forward, this is just another stepping stone, we started with 30,000 on 1 June, 100,000 people on the 30 July, we had 200,000 people on 26 October, I believe we’re going to have 1,000,000 people on 13 September. In one of those livestreams we had 900,000 people watching live on there on X.’ (5)

5m: ‘We then make the next step again, we do have plans, I don’t want to announce them now, I don’t want to give dates away. There will continue to be Unite the Kingdom events.’ (5)

13m: ‘The organiser of this coin, the Unite the Kingdom one on here, has reached out to me, has been speaking to me.’

14m: ‘I’m going to have a discussion with the gentleman after this’ … ‘The idea is that if this coin, whatever you guys do, it generates money’ (4) … ‘I’m looking at this and thinking wow, how much it’s already gone up, as I’m looking at it, (4) but again, I don’t know what happens there, yeah?’ (1)

‘The lads have promised me they’re not doing a rug or whatever they’re doing, but if I’m honest, I don’t really care about that.’

‘He messaged me saying there’s already £7,000 earned in this. (4) They plan on having this as a future meme [sic] that they keep forever that goes with the movement given what we’re doing, great.’ (5)

20m: ‘What I’m gonna want to know tomorrow is how I can cash in on this £7,000 so I can get some bills paid.’ (4)

$UTK’s 2nd X Space, 1 September 2025:

43m: ‘Our idea was if we can build enough of a cultural movement, with enough supporters, from one end of the country to the other, in towns and cities, we could then negotiate with all three political parties (5) — cause we could swing power, in those towns and cities, and we built on our first event: 30,000 [attendees]. Second event: 100,000. Third event: 200,000. This next event: 1,000,000 people guaranteed, we’re gonna take over the capital city.’ (5)

51m: ‘I know crypto is a community, we want the support of every community. So that’s why I’m sitting here speaking. I know the importance of decentralisation.’ (3)

52m: ‘I should’ve gone down the rabbit hole of cryptocurrency a long time ago […] but I understand the importance of a decentralised system, and something they can’t control’ (3) … ‘Unite the Kingdom is the MAGA of Britain, we are the MAGA of Britain, and it’s not going away. (5) Even if I just look, we’ve had four demonstrations, the astronomical cost of this has been […] £400,000. Some people would say that’s a hell of a lot of money, probably not to these crypto people, (4) but it’s a hell of a lot of money to us.’

1h 18m: ‘If we had some sort of funding, or if we had a large donor, or a sponsorship for the event to advertise, the whole world is going to watch this event, (5) I can’t believe I couldn’t find one company that would want to put their name on it.’

1h 20m: ‘I want to plan already, the next event, and I want Hyde Park, and I want the biggest celebration and the biggest thing Britain has ever seen, which we’re gonna have on 13 September, (5) but that’s what I mean, any money we can raise, I don’t know how yous do it, (1) again I know it’s high risk, (2) I don’t know enough about it, (1) then we need support.’ (4) … ‘We want to get bigger, louder, more organised, (5) but to do that, you do need funding.’ (4)

$UTK’s 4th X Space, 4 September 2025:

4m: ‘All the media, all the alternative media, all the TikTokers, they’re going to be videoing the screen — on the screen, on the platform, we have ability for advertisement for pullup banners and on the livestream itself we can put an electrical advertisement in any corner of the screen […] I did reach out to another crypto company, couple of people, who, I didn’t reach out to them, people who are newly involved, look why don’t they back this event.’

‘I’m happy to hear this [$UTK] carries on because the UTK movement is just starting, yeah, it’s not going anywhere it’s going to get bigger and bigger I’m already making the plans, I’ve already picked the date for what we do next, we’re making plans, UTK as a movement, we’ve got lots of plans […] the next event will be bigger (5) — and if it’s bigger you know what that means, it costs more money, now I have to keep begging our supporters, and we keep emailing our supporters, saying look, we need to hit this, we need to pay for this, now the helicopter isn’t a must need for the event but the optics of it and showing the world how many people turned up I think prevents the media from just lying and bullshitting everyone.’ (4)

5m: ‘As a movement […] we’ve done everything without funding, we have £5, £10 off people, so when I see some of the figures these things talk about that you guys do and I look at it, and I hear what the figures will be if it hits $20,000,000 and hear what these figures will be — just you watch what we do, as a Unite the Kingdom movement, (4) just you watch how big this goes, global, of a brand, we become. We are the MAGA of the UK.’ (5)

6m: ‘We are not backing down, our country’s at stake, our future’s at stake and our numbers we’re gonna show the world how organised we are, but also how much support we have on 13 September — and that is just literally a teaser then for our next event, which we’re already in the process of planning, (5) these things are impossible to plan when you don’t have funding.’ (4)

‘If you guys are successful in whatever you’re doing, I still don’t know the ins and outs of it, (1) I’m not really bothered about the ins and outs of it if I’m totally honest, I’m just watching whatever you’re doing every time we have this little space — there’s more money — if you’re paying more money that’s less money that I have to, or our supporters, are having to give.’ (4)

8m: ‘As it gets bigger and bigger, (5) you need an incredible budget, so you tell me what time I can withdraw this money, (4) you tell me.’ … ‘When you watch the demonstration any of you people who have been involved in this you can watch the demonstration and think yeah we helped with that, when you see the helicopter and you see the overhead shot, providing we raise enough money, because we’re still short, so if we get enough money, I get the helicopter, when you see that you know you guys done that.’ (4)

38m: ‘That’s how important the work [supporting grooming gang victims] is, but I wish I was in a position to give more support to those girls to help them, but we’re not, we’re just not, and we haven’t been. So, if this is real, if tomorrow there’s $20,000, pounds or dollars, I’m going to find out we’re at financially with regards to the event, maybe that’s a better cause than getting a helicopter yeah. I want to get a helicopter cause again the optics of that, (4) you’re battling so many different battles, but as you say, if yous end up making astronomical figures and there’s £100,000 there, we get a helicopter, you can help all five of those girls [grooming gang victims who appeared in one of his documentaries].’ (4)

42m: ‘I’m going to check out now with Urban Scoop, they do all the funding for these events, I’m going to check out where they’re at, work out where we’re at, find out if the other dude’s interested’

$UTK’s 5th X Space, 5 September 2025:

1h 10m: ‘I’m new to this rabbit hole, (1) and I shouldn’t be new to this rabbit hole because my first bank account was closed in 2009, and my life’s been absolutely […] I’ve had people tell me mate you’ll have freedom if you just get into crypto, they can’t do what they’re doing to you, (3) but I’ve never gone down the rabbit hole, I’ve always been too busy doing what I’m doing.’ (1)

1h 18m: ‘Have I rugged?’

$UTK’s 7th X Space, 7 September 2025:

28m: ‘I’ve had so many people messaging me, who are conscious, who are worried, who say all these things about crypto, I don’t know, yeah? (1) As I said, I’m not advising and I will not be advising any of my supporters or anyone, I can’t give the advice on crypto (2) because I don’t know anything about it, so I don’t know anything about it, yeah? (1) I know that sometimes things like this can be high risk, some people end up losing money, (2) I don’t know enough about it to be giving any objective opinion, (1) though you guys do, (4) yeah?’

$UTK’s Final X Space before the rally, 12 September 2025:

49m: ‘You guys [UTK] have sponsored […] we’re happy, so, you’re gonna see your logo everywhere I know that anyway, from what I’ve been looking at in the groupchats, sticking my head in them, so.’

Any of Robinson’s supporters present at any of these Spaces could easily be swept up by the politics and emotions involved. It is obvious that discussion of an existential threat facing the country and grooming gang victims in need of money running parallel to promotion of a cryptocurrency could lead to people convincing themselves that buying this token would not, in fact, be for the benefit of greedy individuals, but rather for something that mattered more than money. We suspect this was precisely the hook that was intended.

There are also certain incongruities. Tommy Robinson repeatedly mentions his supposed total ignorance about cryptocurrency, yet he casually uses cryptocurrency slang such as ‘rugged’ (as opposed to the more conventional English term ‘pump and dump’, which a ‘rugpull’ is in many respects a variant of) in these Spaces. He also presses the message of cryptocurrency investments in principle being potentially necessary for him and his political goals.

Add into that the way in which the purchase of $UTK is portrayed as a donation — in which Tommy Robinson gains money regardless of token price fluctuation — rather than as the purchasing of an asset, even though only 0.85% of the purchase price goes directly to Robinson, and you have the perfect conditions to convince large numbers of well-meaning people to put their money into the new coin.

Some other key details about the nature of the business relationships he and Urban Scoop have with cryptocurrency companies came out in these spaces, as detailed above:

1. He confirmed that any logos present at the rally, either as physical sideboards at the rally or as watermarks on the stream, were paid advertisements. This is rather strange (if not quite outright incoherent) given that the purchase of $UTK is often implied by Robinson to be a donation to him and the causes he supports.
2. He said he contacted cryptocurrency companies, before backtracking and saying people involved in Urban Scoop had done so. This is likely related to JUSTFOMO and Athena Bitcoin, but could suggest others were contacted for the 13 September rally or potentially the future events alluded to.
3. Tommy Robinson refers to an ‘other dude’ working at Urban Scoop whose responsibilities are relevant to the purchase of adverts or deals with cryptocurrency merchants.

What kind of advertisement deals were agreed to behind the scenes? Who at Urban Scoop is communicating with these companies and cryptocurrency merchants? We can only ask questions because we can only see what has been made publicly available online.

Who is behind $UTK coin?

It’s inherently difficult to track the connections within an X community to which we have no connection. Nonetheless, by listening to every $UTK X Space a picture starts to emerge of who the main players are in $UTK based on who consistently appeared as guests and hosts in those spaces.

As stated earlier, the creation of the $UTK coin begins with Luke (@1amyourfarther on X). His first post on the platform is about $UTK, on 30 August 2025. On that day, Luke — as he is known on his X account (we have no idea whether that is his real name) — posted updates about the development of the coin, with several people replying with concern over the size of the supply still owned by the founder, with the word ‘scam’ thrown about. Luke spent much of his time on the same day trying to persuade people to trust this cryptocurrency, urging people to believe him that it wasn’t a ‘pump and dump’. On the same day, Tommy Robinson began to like Luke’s posts — while likes are now private, Luke confirmed this himself with a screenshot — and replied to a post of his regarding the development of the cryptocurrency. On 31 August, Luke again stressed that $UTK was not a ‘scam’, this time using the word directly. Tommy Robinson continued to reply and quote-tweet Luke throughout the day. Robinson follows 12.1k accounts and has 1.6 million followers. On the same day, Luke shares posts from the account @utkcoin, but this account was soon suspended (the violations of X’s Terms of Service which caused the suspension are unknown). On 1 September, the new (and current) $UTK X account was created, and on the same day Tommy Robinson continues his almost-daily attendance of its X Spaces.

Individuals such as @tradiecoinmeme, @Skyler_Tea, and @jdale19 began to promote the coin virtually from its inception on 1 September, attending almost every X Space. @Cryptogold782 was the same. Helpfully, Crypto Gold provided his own insight into the coin. See, for instance, 25 minutes into $UTK’s first X Space on 1 September:

‘When people are mentioning Hawk Tuah Coin, just understand that the people who launched that bought 95% of that and they sold on everyone that bought, the thing with BAGSAPP you need to understand is you’re not allowed to bundle, you’re not allowed to do the things you can do in Pumpfun […] it’s very different and that’s part of one of the very good things about it. There is, the dev bought a lot of the supply intentionally to have supply control to control the fluctuation so that he could keep a certain amount just like Trump Coin has 80% purchased, it’s for a supply control mechanism, so this wasn’t designed to dump on a lot of people or for some greedy person to make a lot of money, the design is to support this movement.’

Crypto Gold’s reiteration of Luke’s previous attempts to persuade potential buyers that this coin is safe, this time by comparing it to past scandals, is more eyebrow-raising than reassuring. Curiously, the account @ZGrigio, which had been inactive since February, also suddenly began posting again on 1 September to promote the $UTK Coin daily, and also attending almost every X Space. Another early and regular attendee, Soka_Data, was more diversified in what he posted about, supposedly doing giveaways of $UTK coins and discussing the value of different cryptocurrencies. His promotion of $UTK was almost entirely focused on the profits that could be made from buying the coin before the event, given that the value would likely go up significantly when the rally took place. We will return to the question of why someone who does not care about Robinson’s politics might be interested in $UTK later.

But none of these people appear to be the most important figure when it comes to $UTK. That title would seem to go to John (Johnfrom1776 on X).

For starters, in the 4th X Space on 4 September, John said in the first minute: ‘We had some technical difficulties with the main account.’ This seems to confirm that he is one of the admins of the $UTK X account, or is even the sole admin. This was further supported by the fact that the $UTK account posted on 14 September about there being an X Space ‘tomorrow’ at 7pm BST, despite the post going up at 00:48 BST — likely confirming the admin’s American timezone. (The @Johnfrom1776 account’s name (‘1776’), profile picture, and stated location all suggest that John, just like the admin of $UTK, is probably an American who is living in the United States.) It seems likely that whilst Luke set up the coin, John set up the $UTK X account. John began promoting the coin as early as 31 August with the original, suspended, $UTK X account.

It is worth noting that the stated total that was purportedly raised by transaction fees on BAGSAPP, which Tommy and the $UTK coin clique (predominantly Johnfrom1776) refer to, were always the full 1% generation value from the transaction fees as seen here on UTK’s BAGSAPP page — and not the 0.85% Tommy is supposedly owed. This could be due to Tommy’s own confusion about the numbers he was seeing, or possibly the $UTK coin clique being intentionally misleading about the value generated for Tommy exclusively. Equally, it could possibly point to the 0.85%/0.15% split between Tommy and Luke not being real at all, with the full funds being directed as stated. That Johnfrom1776 is presumably the main admin for the $UTK X account — by his own (apparent) admission and further supported by his likely timezone — makes this even murkier. Who is really getting these transaction fees? In what format? Under what conditions are they granted to Tommy Robinson?

In the first X Space on 1 September, at the 21m mark, John said:

‘We’re actually gonna get Finn who’s the founder of BAGS who’s going to help you claim those rewards so we’ll get him and we’ll probably do it live on Space.’

Why would the founder and operator of the platform the $UTK coin is bought and sold on need to be involved for Tommy to retrieve this money they are supposedly offering?

On the 4th and 6th $UTK X Spaces respectively, John made almost-identical speeches to listeners regarding the coin:

$UTK’s 4th X Space, 4 September 2025:

43m: ‘There are several ways you can help, one is you can donate directly like that one person who was talking about helicopters, Skyler’s gonna follow up with, the other is by purchasing the UTK token, once again, it is an investment where whether the price goes up or the price goes down, money’s still going to Tommy, it’s based on volume. We can do that without selling on the chart, which means that if you’re new to crypto, your investment is not going to decrease because the team is having to sell tokens in order to donate money; the money is coming from volume, so whether people buy, whether they sell, whatever happens the money is going to Tommy, it’s going to a good cause, you heard several of those causes.’

$UTK’s 6th X Space, 6 September 2025:

31m: ‘If you want to help this movement and Tommy’s cause there’s a couple things you can do, obviously you can donate directly to him, you can if you don’t have any money to spare there’s nothing wrong with that, you can still make tweets, you can still call people, you can still tell people about it, you can still make sure you’re coming in here and supporting, and if you want to have a little fun, dip your toes into the cryptocurrency realm and be able to support that way we’ve got the Unite the Kingdom token the official CA is up in the pinned posts […] once again, it was something that was launched on the BAGSAPP, so we don’t have to sell supply, or hurt the value of each token to be able to donate to Tommy, it’s something that we can use the creator rewards that come from volume and write Tommy a cheque for $20,000 after four days, we can make him money, we can donate to his cause and make him money, without having to hurt our investors.’

It sounds like an ad read — and one which could be persuasive for Robinson’s fans, thousands of whom listened to these X Spaces.

But what the $UTK coin clique were primarily doing, and continue to do, is advertise the coin not to Tommy Robinson’s supporters, but to cryptocurrency enthusiasts. If it seems likely that Tommy Robinson will continue to have bigger and bigger rallies, with the $UTK coin logo and URL plastered on every stream, it is not unreasonable to think that a lot of money could be made from the likely spike in purchases at each event. To buy low before each rally, then sell during or immediately after each rally, could prove to be a successful strategy. But who loses? Assuming our suspicions are correct: members of the public, thinking they are supporting Tommy Robinson and his cause(s), inadvertently being used to generate bull runs in a repeated pump and dump cycle (rather than simply abandoning the project altogether, as usually occurs in a ‘rugpull’, a typical scam in the cryptocurrency space).

However, there may be an even more sinister outcome: around 18.35% of $UTK sits in a liquidity pool that has no verified lock. At some point it could all be dumped in one go by the creators, leading to a massive sell-off. There is also no accurate way to analyse who owns the supply of $UTK. Even aside from the liquidity pool, it’s highly possible that the early investors in the token own a large percentage of the supply, possibly across multiple wallets. This would certainly explain why so many shady figures from the cryptocurrency community with no obvious previous interest in British politics are so keen to attend daily X spaces with Tommy Robinson. A coordinated sell-off from these early investors could bring the value of the token down to almost nothing, wiping out any ‘investments’ made by Robinson’s naïve fanbase, most of whom probably know nothing at all about cryptocurrencies.

Of course, the beauty of the 0.85% trading fee ‘donation’ is that Robinson and the $UTK coin clique who attended the X spaces have already pitched their potentially-convincing excuses for the possibility of his fans’ savings being annihilated up-front. Nevermind the millions in profits taken by veterans of ‘memecoin’ market scams when a few thousand — note John’s reference to $20,000, a strangely derisory sum to cite given the money involved in a coin with a peak market cap of $2.6 million — of this will have ended up going to support Robinson: the sugar precedes the pill, and Robinson’s audience would have been rugpulled for a ‘good cause’.

Ant Middleton’s $ANT coin

But it wasn’t just Tommy Robinson who associated himself with cryptocurrencies in advance of the Unite the Kingdom rally. Ant Middleton, a former Royal Marine and television personality, launched his own Solana-based cryptocurrency on 12 September, just one day before the rally. Middleton himself spoke at the rally. On his website for the new coin, it is explained that ‘…every donation matters, and transparency is key. That’s why all contributions generated through the 5% trade tax pre-migration and 3% trade tax post migration will fund Ant’s political campaign’ (emphasis added).

So, with $ANT, a very similar picture emerges:

1. Convince potential buyers to treat it as a donation.
2. Treat transaction fees as the value generated in support of a political cause, whilst ignoring the real value lost or gained.

In a behind the scenes video posted by Tommy Robinson on the day of the rally, Ant Middleton appears as one of the main guests alongside a slew of other more well-known figures, such as Katie Hopkins. Whether Middleton decided to promote a cryptocurrency due to discussions with Robinson or other associates, or because of one of the $UTK coin clique reaching out to him directly, is hard to determine. It should be noted here that rather than being associated with the BAGSAPP, Middleton is instead associated with a separate Solana platform, Forge. Middleton was promoted by the platform and joined X Spaces run both by Forge and by a cryptocurrency community member by the name of Sol Saver, as seen on 14 September. Assuming our suspicions are correct, whether the two schemes are connected or not, and it seems fairly likely (given the different platforms) that they are not connected, the modus operandi is rather similar.

So, what is being agreed behind the scenes for this to occur? Who is connected to whom? Who benefits, and perhaps more importantly, who doesn’t?

Conclusion

Finally, we can return to the three questions at the beginning of the article:

1. How sincere were the organisers of the event with respect to the stated aims of the Unite the Kingdom rally?
2. How much did the organisers know about the organisations whose advertisements were present on the official livestream almost from start to finish?
3. What was Unite the Kingdom’s real purpose?

A fourth question which may be harder to answer is this one: Why has nobody else raised concerns over any of the things pointed out in this article?

It could be that other news outlets, left-wing and right-wing, are preoccupied and not able to put the necessary time and resources into investigating what was being advertised at the rally. It could be that other news outlets are not ‘tech savvy’ enough to effectively delve into the issues discussed above (and even we are not ‘tech savvy’ enough to do the kind of investigations that bona fide cryptocurrency specialists can do, such as blockchain forensics). But many might wonder if the final result of this lack of investigation is that Tommy Robinson and his associates have been given a free hand in their activities, possibly to the detriment of thousands of well-meaning British patriots.

Readers should also be reminded here of Robinson’s past. In 2014, he was found guilty of mortgage fraud, with the judge ruling that he had personally benefitted to the tune of £160,000, and that he was the ‘instigator’ of a series of frauds totalling £640,000. There have also been long-standing allegations that Robinson deliberately gets himself in trouble with the law in order to raise money from his loyal fans. These allegations were given further credence when in 2024, a Canadian far-right activist by the name of Bethan Nodwell claimed that Robinson, realising that his Canadian tour was a failure, intentionally got arrested while in Canada in order to start a ‘Save Tommy’ fundraiser. Robinson purportedly told Nodwell of his plans for this in advance, and had the relevant domain ready before the arrest had even happened.

As Tommy Robinson stressed in the $UTK X Spaces, the Unite the Kingdom rally on 13 September was only the beginning. Who will be advertised on the official stream of the next rally? Which companies will be on the sideboards of the screens in the streets of the next rally? How much money will be made, and lost, and by whom, on the buying and selling of $UTK next time? And who is to say that the currency will not be suddenly exited by its insiders and largest holders, reducing its value to dust?

Thus far unmentioned is the presence of the Advance UK logo alongside Athena Bitcoin, JUSTFOMO and UTKCoin. This is the only watermark which has no obvious connection to cryptocurrencies. Advance UK is a minor right-wing political party founded in June 2025 by former Brexit Party MEP and Reform UK Deputy Leader, Ben Habib. Are Habib and his colleagues at Advance UK happy with their party logo being placed alongside $UTK, Athena Bitcoin and JUSTFOMO?

It increasingly seems as if parts of the Right are unable to be critical of ‘their own’, even when there is good reason to be suspicious about intentions. You would think that if they really cared about ‘Celebrating Our Heritage’, ‘Defending Our Freedoms’, and ‘…a national movement dedicated to celebrating Britain’s rich history, culture, and Christian heritage’, they would not want to tarnish their message by all that has been discussed above.

Given this, it should be noted that Tommy Robinson’s involvement in cryptocurrency comes as part of a broader entanglement of cryptocurrency interests with right-wing populists internationally. The love affair probably began with El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, who made bitcoin legal tender (though this status was reportedly revoked in January 2025) and founded a ‘strategic bitcoin reserve’. In Argentina, Javier Milei promoted a coin called $LIBRA which later collapsed in value, leading to massive losses for investors and accusations of a rugpull. But most prominently of all, Donald Trump has been involved in two coins, $TRUMP and $MELANIA (the latter of which was seemingly rugpulled), and has copied Bukele’s so-called ‘strategic bitcoin reserve’ concept. Eric Trump also has a stake in a company called American Bitcoin which is valued at over $500m, and several other senior figures in the administration (such as Howard Lutnick) also have substantial investments in cryptocurrency. Meanwhile, in Britain, Reform UK have also embraced cryptocurrencies: they are now accepting donations in cryptocurrency, and one of their very first policy papers included such proposals as a special low rate of Capital Gains Tax on cryptocurrency gains, yet another ‘strategic bitcoin reserve’, and, most bizarrely, the ability to pay taxes in cryptocurrency. Pimlico Journal has criticised Robinson and defended Farage on a number of occasions, so in the spirit of self-criticism, we should also ask whether Reform UK’s uncritical support for cryptocurrency is a good idea.

We do not mean to imply that everything involving cryptocurrency is a scam of some kind, or even to make a comment on whether cryptocurrency is good or bad more generally; however, what is clear is that, in the relative absence of conventional donors, right-wing populists of various shades have become vulnerable to the overtures of cryptocurrency investors. In turn, cryptocurrency investors, shunned by the political mainstream and high on their own anti-establishment rhetoric, are almost magnetically drawn to right-wing populists. This is therefore a natural marriage of interests, but not necessarily a healthy one. While some of these cryptocurrency investors are more akin to conventional donors – in the sense that they are donating because they expect something in return, which may be good or bad, but can at least be managed – in other cases they are engaging in activities which are rather more nefarious. Even Trump is not immune to this, as demonstrated by the rugpulling of $MELANIA.

It should be remembered that the cryptocurrency space is still effectively unregulated (whether de jure or de facto), meaning that those who engage in activities which would clearly be illegal for any other security, such as pump and dump schemes (which ‘rugpulls’ are in many respects a variant of) and clear-cut Ponzi schemes, will usually remain unmolested by the law, with only the very worst offenders typically facing prosecution. Looking outside of the political space, consider the fact that online personalities as varied as Jake Paul and Haliey Welch have used their fame to promote cryptocurrency schemes which have lost their fans large amounts of money. Tommy Robinson is, of course, also incredibly famous, and this can be useful. Even if nothing is amiss in this specific case, going forward it should always be remembered that fame, regardless of how it was acquired, can easily be leveraged by nefarious actors in the cryptocurrency space which, if nothing else, has a lot of money available to tempt people with.

Finally, for posterity, here is every single individual over the age of 18 who unknowingly, or indeed knowingly, associated with ‘Athena Bitcoin’, ‘JUSTFOMO.COM’ and ‘$UTK UTKcoin.com’ by their presence on stage at the Unite the Kingdom rally on 13 September:

For convenience, here is a list of those pictured, ordered alphabetically by surname:

• Benjamin, Carl Charles
• Bridgen, Andrew James
• Bystron, Petr
• Dewar, Ceirion H
• Dewinter, Philip Michel Frans
• Doolan, Rikki
• Fox, Laurence
• Gomez, Valentina
• Habib, Benyamin Naeem
• Healy, Charlie
• Hopkins, Katie Olivia
• Keith, Don
• Levant, Ezra Isaac
• Lluch, Ada
• McMahon, Terry
• Messerschmidt, Morten
• Middleton, Anthony
• Musk, Elon Reeve
• Simion, George-Nicolae
• Tamaki, Brian
• Tarczyński, Dominik
• Tuffs, Liam
• Vlaardingerbroek, Eva Lotte Louise Joan
• White, Sarah
• Woodhouse, Sammy
• Yaxley-Lennon, Stephen Christopher
• Yemini, Avi
• Zemmour, Éric Justin Léon

These individuals should consider whether they want to be associated with such activities as those described above. Moreover, assuming that they were simply unaware of what was going on behind the scenes, they should also consider doing more research before agreeing to promote this or that rally or cause to their hundreds of thousands and, in some cases, millions of followers.

This article was written by Bukes and Teapot, who are enemies of the Pimlico Journal. Have a pitch? Send it to [email protected].

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