Coins

 Coins (also known as gold, gold pieces, or gp) are the most common form of currency in RuneScape. When the number of coins in a single stack exceeds 99,999, then the examine text reads "____ x Coins", where the blank is the exact number of coins in the stack; if there is less than that, the examine text reads "Lovely money!".

In RuneScape, coins appear as small gold coins, also noted by some people that they look like nuggets, roughly cylindrical, and are stackable. In Grim Tales, it is revealed that coins have more intricate designs imprinted on their faces, although it is impossible for players to notice it.

Terminology


Beside coins, players commonly refer to the RuneScape currency as gold, gold pieces, gp, cash, or money. Alternate terms for coins are occasionally used by NPC's in RuneScape.

Stacking
One thousand coins (1,000) is usually called 1k. Similar to the metric system, the "k" stands for "kilo," which is Greek for "thousand." On German-language servers, the symbol for "k" is changed to "T", since "Tausend" is German for thousand. One billion coins is referred to as 1bil/1bill or 1B.

A stack of gold has a small, coloured text on the upper-left hand corner of the stack. With larger stacks of coins—as with all stackable items—both the colour of the text and the stack's examine text change depending on the amount of gold in the stack.

A stack of coins that uses a 'K' or 'M' identifier always rounds down to the integer multiple. For example, 15.9M is shown as 15M. This protects players receiving the coins in trade from being cheated by rounded values, e.g. A player receiving 15M can be guaranteed that the stack is not just 14.5M rounded up.

Maximum Limits
No stack can hold more than 2,147,483,647 (2^31-1) coins in its stack. This is because RuneScape stores the number of coins using an int type variable which is stored using a 32-bit twos-complement representation. This means that the value may only be whole numbers ranging from -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647.

Consequently, this is the maximum amount of coins (and indeed any other stackable item) that can be stored in a stack. If a player attempts to withdraw or pick up coins while carrying the maximum amount of coins, it is stated that there is not enough inventory space. In terms of actual coins it is possible to store money in the bank, inventory, GE, and kingdoms (7.5M max) giving an absolute total of 17,187,369,176 stored - eight max-stacks plus 7.5 million.

Players with wealth exceeding this amount usually choose to either invest their money in discontinued items, or spirit shards, or another item of high market liquidity . Spirit Shards are worth 25 gp and can be sold (sell x) to the pet store in Yanille , and therefore are the typically chosen currency when coins are no longer an option.

Since, Java also supports long integer variables which provide values up to 64-bit (2^63-1), it is possible that the current limit could change.

Coins in Daemonheim
Coins in Daemonheim are similar to regular coins although they have a different examine and are destroyed upon leaving. The only use coins have in Daemonheim is to buy items from the Smuggler. The examine, which is "They make the world go round" is a reference to the common idiom used in the real world, "Money makes the world go round". You can ask what you do with them from the Smuggler, but he says "Oh, they're nothing. You can give them all to me."

Making money through skills
As money in RuneScape plays a necessity for all players, certain skills in the RuneScape community have gained popularity because of their potential to create profit for the player with a vast number of ways to do so. However, as with the introduction to the Grand Exchange, many of these skills became impossible to solely generate great amounts of money but this also allowed other lesser used skills to be in demand, though requiring very high levels.

Buying RuneScape gold
Some players purchase RuneScape coins in exchange for real-world money from so-called "gold farmers". Although players could potentially gain monetary value within RuneScape by such means, this method is forbidden by Jagex; Rule 12 of RuneScape forbids the trading of RuneScape items for items or services outside of RuneScape. Doing so will result in a permanent ban.

Trivia

 * In RuneScape Classic, whenever coin(s) are dropped the amount of coins did not change the image. Therefore, it was impossible to know how many coins are on there ground without picking them up.
 * According to Gypsy Aris, in the 4th age coins were made of silver.
 * The maximum price one can put up on the Grand Exchage is 2,147,483,647 coins. Any offer greater than this will simply read "Too high!" where the total price would normally be shown.
 * According to Saradomin, coins are minted by The Fief. He doesn't give more detail as to who or what the Fief is, but judging from the meaning of "Fief" it is likely to be one of the human kingdoms (e.g. Misthalin).
 * Alchemy spells cannot be cast on coins. If a player attempts it, a message will inform the player that "Coins are already made of gold...". You can, however, turn other gold items (such as gold ore and gold bars) into coins using alchemy spells.
 * When you kill an NPC that drops coins and you kill another one in the same spot and it too drops coins, the coins will stack.