The official X account for $USDC, the stablecoin issued by Circle, posted a photo of rapper DJ Khaled on Monday welcoming him to "team $USDC"—and Crypto Twitter immediately pushed back, flooding the replies with reminders of the entertainer's history of paid crypto promotions that ended in regulatory trouble.

There is, however, probably less to the post than meets the eye. Circle is Chelsea FC's front-of-shirt partner, and Khaled's appearance stems from the club's separate Roc Nation deal announced in May.

What Actually Happened

The official $USDC account on X posted a photo of DJ Khaled wearing a Chelsea jersey with "$USDC by Circle" across the chest. The caption read "Another one," a nod to the producer's signature catchphrase. About four hours later, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire shared the post with a note addressed to the rapper: "DJ Khaled welcome to team $USDC."

@djkhaled welcome to team @ $USDC
— Jeremy Allaire (@jerallaire) October 5, 2026

Nothing in either post announces a sponsorship, an ambassador role, or any money changing hands. It reads more like a cheeky nod. Circle is Chelsea's official front-of-shirt sponsor, and Khaled enters the picture through a separate door: Chelsea's Roc Nation announcement in May featured DJ Khaled as part of a promotional stunt.

Direct sponsorship or not, Crypto Twitter wasn't having it, given DJ Khaled's checkered history in crypto.

The Backlash

"Please don't work with scammers like this," Joseph Schiarizzi posted on X. "You really want people who have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines to the SEC for illegally not disclosing payments they received for promoting ICOs representing your brand?"

Schiarizzi was referring to the scandal involving the fraudulent Centra ICO. The founders behind Centra went to jail way back in 2020. DJ Khaled, among many other celebrities, promoted the token—and Khaled paid more than $150,000 in fines to the SEC for not disclosing that it was a paid deal.

Given that history, you could be forgiven for thinking DJ Khaled was being paid to promote $USDC, and perhaps failing to disclose it again, and for publicly chastising Circle, a billion-dollar publicly listed company, for associating with the rapper. But that doesn't appear to be what's going on. Still, Crypto Twitter is big mad—after all, the internet never forgets. The episode is also a reminder that for regulated stablecoin issuers courting mainstream sports and entertainment audiences, crypto's enforcement-era history of undisclosed celebrity endorsements can resurface in a single reply thread.

Pseudonymous crypto sleuth Wazz Crypto went sarcastic, suggesting Circle sponsor Kim Kardashian next, because she's an "outspoken advocate" of stablecoins that "lines up perfectly" with the brand.

I think you should sponsor Kim Kardashian she has been an outspoken advocate for the use of stablecoins for cross border payments, lines up perfectly with the brand message you're trying pass
— Wazz (@WazzCrypto) October 6, 2026

For those who don't get the joke: the SEC ordered Kardashian to pay $1.26 million in penalties, disgorgement and interest in 2022 for promoting the EthereumMax token on Instagram without disclosing a $250,000 payment.

Taylor Monahan, formerly of MetaMask, went hard: "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?" she posted on X.

Circle really hired the guy who was charged 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???????
— Tay 💖 (@tayvano_) October 6, 2026

The Centra Case, Explained

For the record, the SEC and DOJ never charged Khaled with fraud. The case against the rapper was about an undisclosed payment. The SEC's charges landed in November 2018, alongside same-day charges against boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr.—part of the regulator's broader push against celebrities who touted ICOs without disclosing their paydays.

In September 2017, Khaled had 12.4 million Instagram followers when he posted a photo of himself with a Centra Tech debit card, per the order, calling it "the ultimate winner in Cryptocurrency debit cards" and telling his followers: "Get your CTR tokens now!"

CTR was the token from Centra's ICO—an initial coin offering, a fundraiser where a startup sells its own digital tokens to the public, like a stock sale without the stock. Centra paid Khaled $50,000 for the post, per the SEC, and he didn't tell his followers. The law says that if someone pays you to promote an investment, you have to say so, because otherwise an ad can pass for an honest tip.

The product itself was fiction. Prosecutors said the Visa and Mastercard partnerships behind Centra's crypto card were fake—and so was its CEO, a "Michael Edwards" with a Harvard MBA who didn't exist.

Centra raised more than $25 million in total. Co-founder Robert Farkas pleaded guilty and was sentenced to one year and one day; Sohrab Sharma received eight years and was ordered to forfeit $36 million. Netflix later made a documentary about the Centra scam, Bitconned.

Khaled settled with the SEC and paid the fine. His two-year agreement not to take payment for promoting securities expired on November 29, 2020—so he is more than welcome to strike deals with any crypto company he wants. For now, the public record is just the two X posts; whether anything formal and disclosed ever follows is the detail to watch. And Crypto Twitter will no doubt be right there to call it out.