The Reserve Bank of Australia is backing real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, citing analysis that it could add about 24 billion Australian dollars (A$24B / US$16.7B) to the economy each year.
Assistant Governor Brad Jones said findings from Project Acacia indicate tokenized finance and supporting infrastructure upgrades could be “revolutionary,” reflecting industry views cited in the report. He estimated potential annual gains to the Australian economy at roughly A$24 billion, “and larger still if new markets emerged.”
“First, we no longer see the main question as whether tokenization has a future in Australia’s financial system, but rather, how.”
Global consultants McKinsey have forecast tokenized assets could approach nearly US$2 trillion by 2030. In November, Joe Longo, head of Australia’s securities regulator, urged the country to “seize the opportunity” or risk falling behind.
Project Acacia is a collaborative RBA research effort run with the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre and industry partners. Built on a previous wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot, it examined whether tokenized assets could improve the functioning of Australia’s wholesale financial markets.
New digital finance sandbox to be explored
Jones said the RBA will work with agencies and industry to investigate a new digital financial market infrastructure (DFMI) sandbox, using lessons from Project Acacia. The sandbox could provide a safe, stage-gated environment for testing and scaling tokenized money, assets, and new infrastructure over the longer term, and could be linked with a CBDC.
“The interaction of wholesale CBDC with bank deposit tokens and stablecoins, and the synchronisation of tokenized asset ledgers with RITS [Reserve Bank Information and Transfer System], will be particular areas of interest.”
RWA onchain value surges 234% in a year
Jones emphasized that updating Australia’s payments, monetary and financial infrastructure for the digital era is a strategic RBA priority.
The total onchain value of the RWA market reached a record US$27.5 billion last week, excluding stablecoins, according to RWA.xyz. The sector has grown rapidly, up 234% over the past 12 months despite the wider crypto bear market.
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