Obama HInts At Minting $1 Trillion Platinum Coin. How Big Would It Be?

• BY WIRED SCIENCE STAFF
• 01.09.13

It’s not quite what’s being considered, but what if the U.S. Treasury minted a coin from $1 trillion worth of platinum?

The 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 the coin had the same proportions as the U.S. dollar coin, we calculated it would be roughly 80 feet wide and 6 feet tall.

And if a platinum coin were the same size as the U.S. dollar coin, it would be worth a bit more than $1,200.

[Calculations assumed $1593 per troy ounce of platinum.]