What if the U.S. Treasury minted a coin from $1 trillion worth of platinum?

Such a coin would weigh 42,778,918 pounds — the equivalent of nearly seven Saturn V rockets — and occupy 31,947 cubic feet.

What would this coin look like?

If it had the same proportions as the U.S. dollar coin, it would be roughly 80 feet wide and 6 feet thick. Though not a very practical coin, it would have the benefit of being really difficult to steal. And you could see it from space.

But commodity money disappeared a long time ago, so let’s say the government decides to mint an actual trillion-dollar coin, and makes it out of pure platinum at the same size as the U.S. silver dollar; though the coin would be worth $1 trillion, the platinum itself would only be worth a bit more than $1,200.

[Calculations assumed $1,593 per troy ounce of platinum.]

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/01/1-trillion-platinum-coin/