Project Acacia Enters Pilot Phase with Real-World Testing of Tokenised Assets

On 10 July 2025, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC) announced a major milestone in Project Acacia, selecting 24 industry participants to test how digital money and settlement infrastructure could support the development of Australian wholesale tokenised asset markets.

The pilot includes 19 real-money use cases and 5 proof-of-concept trials, covering asset classes such as fixed income, private markets, trade receivables, and carbon credits. These tests will use stablecoins, bank deposit tokens, pilot wholesale CBDC, and innovations in exchange settlement accounts, across platforms like Hedera, Redbelly Network, R3 Corda, Canvas Connect, and other EVM-compatible networks.

To support the project, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is providing regulatory relief to enable responsible testing of transactions involving tokenised assets and digital money.

Findings from the pilot phase are expected in Q1 2026 and will inform the RBA’s ongoing research into the future of money and wholesale financial markets in Australia.