Of course this isn't what is being considered, but 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, we calculated 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.]
Image: Alchemist-hp/Wikimedia commons
