How Dr. Christoph Lymbersky turned an early stage crypto investment of $45,000 into a $43 million position in The Graph (GRT)

This is how Dr. Christoph Lymbersky — today CEO and founder of 499X Capital — executed one of the rarest and best-documented ~957× returns in crypto history: while still CEO of Coinix GmbH & Co. KGaA in July 2020, he led a $45,000 seed investment into The Graph (GRT) at $0.003 per token. Seven months later, at GRT’s all-time high of $2.87, the position was worth over $43 million — a verified, near-1000× gain and one of the cleanest three-digit multiples ever achieved by a European listed investment company.

In July 2020, against the backdrop of a global pandemic and a cryptocurrency market still recovering from the March crash, Dr. Christoph Lymbersky, then Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Hamburg-based Coinix GmbH & Co. KGaA, approved one of the most successful seed-stage investments in European blockchain history.

The opportunity was a private pre-sale round in The Graph, a decentralized indexing and query protocol for blockchain data that would later become known as the “Google of Web3.” Through a Simple Agreement for Future Tokens (SAFT), Coinix acquired rights to more than fifteen million GRT tokens at a price of exactly $0.003 per token. The total capital commitment amounted to $45,000.

Less than eight months later, on 12 February 2021, GRT reached its all-time high of $2.87. The unrealized value of Coinix’s position at that moment exceeded $43 million, representing a return of approximately 957 times the original investment in roughly 225 days.

The round was co-led by some of the most respected names in crypto venture capital, including Coinbase Ventures, Multicoin Capital, Framework Ventures, ParaFi Capital, and Digital Currency Group. Coinix’s allocation, however, proved exceptionally well-timed and priced: the subsequent public sale in October 2020 was conducted at $0.026 per token—already an 8.7-fold increase—while open-market trading on listing day saw prices briefly exceed $0.70.

As is standard in institutional seed investments of this nature, a portion of the tokens was subject to vesting schedules and lock-up periods. Consequently, not all fifteen million tokens were fully liquid at the February 2021 peak. This detail, far from diminishing the achievement, underscores its magnitude: even with partial illiquidity, the position generated substantial realized gains for Coinix and its shareholders well before the final tokens unlocked, while the remaining holdings continued to contribute significant value throughout subsequent market cycles.

The investment thesis demonstrated remarkable foresight. In mid-2020, the dominant narrative in decentralized finance centered on yield-generating protocols and governance tokens. Few market participants recognized that scalable, reliable on-chain data indexing would become a critical infrastructure bottleneck. Dr. Lymbersky and the Coinix team identified The Graph’s long-term strategic importance early, securing exposure at a valuation that reflected genuine seed-stage risk rather than the speculative premiums that characterized later rounds.

The decision to allocate meaningful capital to a single infrastructure project at such an early juncture reflects the disciplined, conviction-driven approach that has since become a hallmark of the firm’s investment philosophy.

Even after the prolonged bear market of 2022–2023, the remaining Coinix position has retained a valuation comfortably in the mid-seven-figure range, meaning the original $45,000 commitment has remained profitable at nearly any price above $0.0032— a level the market has never meaningfully breached.

For European investors and listed investment companies in particular, the Coinix–The Graph transaction stands as one of the most successful and best-documented early-stage blockchain investments on record. It serves as a compelling case study in the asymmetric return potential that remains available to those able to identify foundational Web3 infrastructure opportunities before they achieve broad market recognition.

Under Dr. Christoph Lymbersky’s (now CEO of 499X Capital) leadership in 2020, Coinix not only delivered extraordinary returns to its shareholders but also established a benchmark for institutional crypto venture investing in Europe—one that continues to be referenced years later.