Australia's tokenization pilot says the hard part isn't the asset, it's the cash

The Reserve Bank of Australia (@RBAInfo) and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC) have released the final report from Project Acacia, a wholesale research initiative that tested how innovations in digital money and settlement infrastructure could support tokenized asset markets in Australia.

Twenty Use Cases, One Core Problem

Industry participants developed and tested 20 wholesale tokenized asset use cases spanning fixed income, repos, managed funds, carbon credits, and trade payables. The experiments covered the full asset lifecycle, from issuance and servicing through to trading and settlement. The headline finding was straightforward: tokenizing the asset is manageable. Settling the cash leg is the bottleneck.

The project put four settlement models side by side. These included traditional RBA exchange settlement account (ESA) balances, a pilot wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC), tokenized commercial bank deposits, and stablecoins. Each option resolved part of the problem while creating another. Stablecoins add private-sector competition but bring reserve, redemption, and regulatory questions. A wholesale CBDC could provide a risk-free settlement asset with programmable features, but it puts the central bank closer to market infrastructure design. Deposit tokens keep settlement inside the banking system, but risk fragmenting liquidity if they cannot move freely between institutions.

Project Acacia demonstrated how tokenized assets, digital money, and new settlement infrastructure can improve the efficiency and functioning of wholesale financial markets, including faster settlement, reduced counterparty risk, improved capital efficiency, and automated asset servicing. DFCRC research estimates that digital finance innovation could deliver $24 billion in annual economic gains for Australia.

CBDC Helpful But Not Essential

RBA Assistant Governor Brad Jones noted that wholesale CBDC could be helpful but was far from essential for tokenized markets to get started, pointing instead to tools such as RITS synchronization, fast payment rails, and existing central bank infrastructure as nearer-term paths.

Continued exploration of wholesale CBDC is warranted, but many of the benefits of tokenization can be realised using existing central bank money in the form of ESA balances. The report also flagged that further collaboration between industry, regulators, and government is needed to achieve the desired legal and regulatory conditions for a tokenized ecosystem, and that longer-term regulatory or innovation sandboxes could better support the experimentation pathways required for tokenized markets to scale.

Looking ahead, the report outlines a new multi-stream program aimed at advancing responsible innovation in Australia's wholesale financial markets, focusing on overcoming long-standing coordination challenges, removing unnecessary barriers to the safe adoption of new technologies, and enabling industry participants to explore and scale innovative approaches in a manner consistent with financial stability.

Sources:
RBA and DFCRC Release Findings From Project Acacia, RBA Media Release, May 2026
Project Acacia Overview, Reserve Bank of Australia
Australia's central bank plans tokenization sandbox in Project Acacia roadmap, Ledger Insights