Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney called a Fortnite inspired Solana meme coin a scam.
But even negative attention was enough to pump the price 2,700% for a while. Still, some degens believe that this is all part of the Fortnite-related gag, even suggesting that Sweeney launched the tokens himself—which he denies.
This comes after iconic battle royale Fortnite added a blockchain-themed storyline into the game, with a pickle antagonist called Big Dill that is on the run for his involvement in a crypto rug pull. The in-game currency Dill Bits can be spent on high-value items at “black market” locations on the map. Of course, crypto degens saw this gag and decided to make it a reality by launching a Solana meme coin with no official connection to Fortnite.
“Dill Bits is a fictional, in-game currency exclusive to Fortnite Battle Royale Chapter 6 Season 2. There is no real cryptocurrency or memecoin associated with Fortnite or endorsed by Epic,” a spokesperson for Epic Games told Decrypt.
Over two weeks, the real Dill Bits (DB) token soared to a $4.72 million market cap as the Fortnite storyline unraveled. But over the coming 26 days, the token crashed 96.62% to just $159,440 as it faded into irrelevancy like most meme coins do.
Late on Sunday, popular X user, Greg jokingly stated that you need to report your income received from illegal activities. Sweeney responded by tagging the Dill Bits Solana meme coin account, suggesting that it was a scam. Dill Bits (DB) skyrocketed 2,700% from $192,100 to $5.38 million in just an hour and a half.
Another user on X, formerly Twitter, believed that Sweeney did this on purpose, after they found a wallet profiting almost $100,000 after purchasing the token 30 minutes prior to the pump. Other users pointed out that Sweeney is a purported billionaire so the scheme probably isn’t worth it for him.
“Scam,” Sweeney first responded. “What [are] you fools talking about, I’m just shitposting.”
This led to a crowd of crypto degens swarming the CEO as they attempted to pump their tokens and created theories that he’d actually created the meme coin on Pump.fun.
Sweeney did not approve, denied everything, and went on a rampage of calling out tokens.
“I didn’t launch it. What is wrong with you people,” he posted, before being tagged in posts about other Solana tokens. “They are all scams.”
Ironically, the Fortnite storyline centers the Dill Bits in-game currency as part of a scam led by Big Dill, a notorious rapper, bank robber, and crypto coin creator. As a result, the community behind the Solana Dill Bits (DB) have taken the public call out by Sweeney as bullish for their cause.
“Tim literally spamming all meme coins are scams in his replies this is perfect,” pseudonymous Dill Bits Telegram admin Wrister posted. “The irony is too good and he acknowledged DillBits while also directly tagging our AI bot.”
Despite this, the Dill Bits (DB) token plummeted 82.3% to a market cap of $952,440 since its Sunday pump.
“I believe most degens just misunderstood the ‘scam’ statement from Epic CEO,” Telegram user Dionisii claimed in the Dill Bits group. “[The] DB narrative is about [a] scammer and scamming people, he literally was proving that again and again with his ‘scam’ replies on X lol.”
Sweeney did not respond to Decrypt’s request for comment.
As much as investors may want to believe it, it’s unlikely that Epic Games, its founder, or the team behind Fortnite has launched a real token. Back in summer of 2024, Sweeney posted on X “as we’ve plainly said many times we aren’t adopting cryptocurrency or NFT trading or similar,” although he added that he was open to using the blockchain as a database alternative.
“Blockchain—perhaps someday as a decentralized solution to distributed transactional evolution of simulation state computed among participants in an open ecosystem,” the Epic Games founder explained. “For me, money is kind of the least interesting of applications on blockchains.”
Sweeney pointed to zero-knowledge proofs and consensus mechanisms as more interesting areas of the industry that he believes “should” be key to the future of technology. But ultimately said “cryptocurrency in Fortnite—no.”
Edited by Stacy Elliott.
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