Ripple CTO David Schwartz recently made a post about the smallest number that takes 11 steps to reach 1, sparking community reactions and XRP price speculation.
Ripple’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO), David Schwartz, recently set the XRP community abuzz with a cryptic tweet. Schwartz’s post contained a particularly strange stream of numbers.
The tweet read:
“277,777,788,888,899 is the smallest number that goes to 11.”
277,777,788,888,899 is the smallest number that goes to 11.
— David "JoelKatz" Schwartz (@JoelKatz) August 23, 2023
The Ripple CTO’s antics got significant engagement on X, with many XRP community members offering different interpretations. “Is this another riddle?” someone asked.
However, given that Schwartz mentioned ‘11’ in the tweet, some people considered it a price projection for XRP, albeit humorously. An XRP-themed X account jokingly said, “$277,777,788,888,899 XRP confirmed,” with a launching emoji.
$277,777,788,888,899 #XRP confirmed ?
— XRPcryptowolf (@XRPcryptowolf) August 23, 2023
The Number Mystery
Meanwhile, the strange-looking number embodies a record-breaking mathematical progression. A renowned YouTube channel, Numberphile, demystified the figure four years ago.
Notably, the number gained attention due to its multiplication persistence. The underlying concept revolves around the number of steps to reduce a given number to a single-digit result by continuously multiplying its digits.
An XRP influencer, Dark Defender, attempted to re-establish the mystery in his response tweet. He carried out the continuous multiplication and resulted in a digit. However, he missed the point.
Dark Defender sought clarification from the Ripple CTO about how he missed the mathematical process. Schwartz clarified:
“The 11 is the number of steps before you’re left with a single digit. It’s the smallest number that persists to 11 steps and no known number persists to 12.”
The 11 is the number of steps before you're left with a single digit. It's the smallest number that persists to 11 steps and no know number persists to 12.
— David "JoelKatz" Schwartz (@JoelKatz) August 24, 2023
For more context, the cryptic tweet refers to the famous Collatz conjecture. It involves starting with any positive integer. Two divides the number if it is even, while three and one multiply it if odd.
According to the Collatz conjecture, the number 277,777,788,888,899 is the smallest number that takes 11 steps to reach 1.
While the phenomenon has nothing to do with XRP, the recent development underscores the readiness of the XRP community member to ascribe posts such as this to the asset.