Fortnite, the massively popular battle royale game, recently introduced a satirical in-game cryptocurrency called Dill Bits, seemingly poking fun at the broader crypto industry.

But what started as an in-game gag quickly turned into reality when a crypto trader launched a real Dill Bits (DB) token, leading to wild speculation, massive gains, and an inevitable crash.

Dill Bits coming to life as a memecoin

Fortnite paid a nice tribute to the crypto world in its latest release of Fortnite Chapter 6: Season 2 by deliberating designing the map with multiple references and satire in reference to the crypto world, starting with Dill Bits.

Dill Bits (DB) is a token that allows players to trade and buy high tier loot for one of the three blackmarkets in the game, seemingly a pokefun at how the crypto was notoriously linked to the purchase of illegal items on the dark web.

Dill Bits token was described as a “confusing crypto coin you never knew you needed.”But this is no the only item with a reference to crypto. Adding to the joke, Fortnite also poked fun at the volatility and manipulative nature of the memecoin world by introducing a weapon named "Pump and Dump", a term used in the crypto to describe the market manipulation tactic often deployed by bad actors to scam victims of their money.

However, some crypto traders took it more seriously. Despite having no affiliation with Epic Games, they release a real Dill Bits (DB) memecoin on the Solana-based Pump.fun platform, which lets users create tokens in just a few clicks. Within 24 hours, DB hit a staggering $4.78 million market cap before experiencing a steep decline.

According to DEX Screener, the top DB trader walked away with $69,000 in profits after purchasing $7,845 worth of tokens early on—just after DB hit a $100,000 market cap and "graduated" from Pump.fun. In fact, the top trader had bought $7,745 worth of Dill Bits right after it graduated.

Ironically, Fortnite's "pump and dump" gag manifested itself into reality, as the $DB ememcoin quickly dumped after its initial pump to $4.78 million. It is currently down by over 90%, as the market cap sits at roughly $366k at press time.

Fortnite is making its market in the memecoins market

This isn’t the first Fortnite-theme memecoin to go mainstream on crypto twitter. Degens created a large number of memecoin dedicated to Fornite skins, weapons, and Fortnite during the gen-z TikTok meta, during which $ChillGuy gained prominence.

Among which was $JONESY-a reference to the default Fortnite character-which gained a market cap of $5.32 million despite bad launch timing. Despite that initial pump, $JONESY is currently down by over 99% from its all-time high. At press time, it is sitting at a market cap of a mere $27k.

Compared to past meme coin booms, DB’s peak at $4.78 million appears underwhelming. Some traders speculate this reflects a waning interest in speculative tokens, especially as Solana meme coin 360noscope420blazeit (MLG)—inspired by early Call of Duty culture—once hit $238 million in market cap before crashing below $10 million.

Due to the overall market's pressures, it currently sits at a market cap of $9.1 million.

Crypto Market Cooling Off?

Adding to the pressure, broader market conditions have turned bearish. The recent Libra token fiasco, promoted by Argentina’s President Javier Milei, saw a 90% crash in mere hours—fueling growing skepticism toward meme coins. Since then, new Pump.fun token launches have fallen 27%, from 39,450 to 28,725 in just three days.

Meanwhile, Solana, Ethereum, and XRP have posted double-digit losses, while Bitcoin briefly dropped to $86,000 on Tuesday. In a market dominated by red, it seems traders are increasingly reluctant to bet big on another fleeting video game-inspired meme coin.