Circle, the issuer of $74 billion stablecoin USDC, has shared a promotional photo of music producer DJ Khaled sporting the new USDC-sponsored Chelsea FC shirt, with CEO Jeremy Allaire posting “welcome to team USDC.”
This is despite Khaled’s history of undisclosed shilling of crypto projects, which landed him in trouble with the SEC back in 2018.
Khaled’s own X feed doesn’t mention any partnership with USDC.
Circle really hired the guy who was charged with promoting one of the only ICO scams that was so stupid, so blatantly fraudulent, so criminal that it was written up in NYTimes and then promptly prosecuted by DOJ *and* SEC???????https://t.co/a7rAMIU5WU https://t.co/nMz60TK50R
— Tay(@tayvano_) October 6, 2026
Read more: Circle’s refusal to ‘burn and reissue’ stolen USDC angers prosecutors, report
The charges in question relate to Centra Tech, a $25 million ICO which landed one co-founder in prison for eight years and another for one year. A third, who cooperated with authorities, later appeared in a Netflix documentary about the scam.
A November 2018 SEC press release details how Khaled, real name Khaled Khaled, alongside boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr., settled with the SEC after “failing to disclose payments they received for promoting investments in ICOs.”
Khaled’s role reportedly involved telling his X followers to “get yours before they sell out, I got mine…”
In the SEC’s first charges relating to “touting” ICOs, it claims that Khaled was paid $50,000 from Centra Tech. Mayweather received $100,000, plus another $200,000 from two other ICOs.
“Without admitting or denying the findings,” the duo paid settlements of approximately $153,000 and $615,000, respectively, with Khaled agreeing not to promote any “securities, digital or otherwise,” for two years.
Read more: Bitconned: The story of Miami crypto bros facing 100 years in prison
‘Another one…’
Partnering with an ICO shill is the latest in a string of gaffes from Circle.
The recent launch of its own corporate-focused blockchain, Arc, was accompanied by a “fellow kids” moment when a Circle team member promoted a memecoin based on Allaire’s dog Duke.
Briefly peaking at a market cap of around $2 million, the DUKE token is down 96% in the three weeks since launch.
Read more: ‘Bad actor’ Circle slammed for letting stolen $3M USDC sit unfrozen
More seriously, Circle is routinely criticized for its inaction in the wake of major crypto hacks in its failure to use USDC’s built-in freeze function, especially when compared to rival Tether.
Earlier this year, $3 million of USDC sat in a SwapNet hacker address for hours before being swapped to unfreezable assets.
Similar criticism was levelled at Circle following hacks of GMX and ByBit, last year.
On-chain investigator and frequent Circle critic ZachXBT even claims to have identified $420 million of “compliance failures” across 15 incidents.
Surprisingly, Circle did react first in response to the $350 million Bitget hack, blacklisting an address holding almost 100,000 USDC, beating Tether by seven hours.
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