I'm being pedantic, but no currency is "real". This one allows players to buy thing, which they are likely to want to do since they have in the past (and cared enough to start a class action over). You deciding that those goods are "hits of crack" is entirely subjective.

However it is true that it only costs Epic the lost revenue from selling those v-bucks. If a freely-tradable currency was emitted to cover debt, you'd have the penalty of devaluation, but that is not the case here. Of course that makes no difference for the players, that's only about punishment.