In February of 2014 a lot of (lucky/risky) investors donated around $25 (some more and some less) worth of btc or NXT in hopes of helping NEM and joining the Nemesis block.  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=440185.msg4903908#msg4903908

For those that stuck around and redeemed their coupon, they were rewarded with a launch marketcap of around $2.5 million during the first week.  That was $625 per person.  From $25 that was a whopping 25x increase on their money for patiently waiting 14 months (which is a looooooooong time in crypto years).

For some months after that launch NEM slowly drifted down as many people sold, but also the NEM developers were quietly working in the background, just as they still are. 

Some 14 months after launch we can look at the marketcap today of about $63m and see that since that original launch marketcap of $2.5m, NEM has gone up ANOTHER 25x in another 14 months. 

One time can be an accident.  Two times means there is something there.  But if NEM repeats this growth again over the next 14 months, we can safely say that this is real. 

All numbers in this post can be checked on Coinmarketcap. https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/nem/