The Reserve Bank of Australia has released new Project Acacia findings, giving the local market one of its clearest signals yet on how tokenised assets and digital money could fit into wholesale finance.
Published on 18 May 2026, the work from the RBA and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre examined how digital money could support wholesale tokenised asset markets. The project tested use cases across issuance, servicing, trading and settlement, with a focus on whether tokenisation can improve market efficiency and resilience.
What Project Acacia tested
Project Acacia looked at 20 wholesale tokenised asset market use cases. These included different settlement models using exchange settlement account balances, a pilot wholesale central bank digital currency, tokenised commercial bank deposits and stablecoins.
That range matters because it shows policymakers are not treating tokenisation as a single technology bet. Instead, Australia is exploring multiple forms of digital settlement assets and how each might work in regulated financial markets.
Why tokenisation matters for Australia
Tokenised assets can potentially make wholesale markets faster, more programmable and easier to reconcile. In practical terms, that could support more efficient securities settlement, new approaches to collateral, and improved post-trade processes. The RBA has also pointed to potential benefits for market functionality and resilience.
For the crypto sector, Project Acacia is important because it connects blockchain-style infrastructure with institutional finance. Stablecoins, deposit tokens and wholesale CBDC are not identical, but they all sit inside the broader question of how money moves on digital rails.
What comes next
The RBA has flagged further work with regulators and industry, including possible sandbox arrangements, tokenised government bond work, commercial bank deposit tokens and continued wholesale CBDC exploration. That means the next stage is likely to focus less on theory and more on controlled market testing.
For Australian investors and crypto businesses, the key takeaway is that tokenisation is moving deeper into official financial market planning. It may not change retail crypto trading overnight, but it could shape the infrastructure that banks, exchanges and asset managers use in the years ahead.
Sources: RBA Project Acacia media release, Project Acacia final report.
Reader comments