Australia’s top financial watchdog has approved a selection group of companies to pilot real money transactions using central bank digital and stable currencies, marking the country’s most ambitious forays.
The Australian Securities and Investment Commission said on Wednesday it would grant regulatory relief to 14 participants in Project Acacia. This is a joint effort between the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre, which aims to test how digital forms of money support institutional trading of tokenized assets.
Tokenized assets Digital representations of real-world assets, such as recorded bonds, assets, or goods, are Blockchain Technology allows fractional ownership and allows faster settlement of traditional financial products.
Recent developments represent Australia’s most ambitious attempts at tokenized finance, and, according to recent, representing potential annual economic benefits of up to $12.4 billion. DFCRC Research.
24 selected use cases range from a variety of asset classes, including bonds, private markets, deposits, and carbon credits.
Major financial institutions, including ANZ, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac, will join together with Fintech companies such as Fireblocks and Zerocap in what is called the “world’s first” test scenario.
Regulatory clearance will allow responsible testing of tokenized asset transactions between participants and financial institutions over the coming months, and ASIC relief will support streamlined pilot operations that otherwise face regulatory barriers.
Technology and ideology testing
According to Kadan Stadelmann, Chief Technology Officer of Komodo Platform, “Governments around the world are in a hurry to develop nationally approved blockchain solutions that do not provide any of the actual innovations offered by Bitcoin. Decryption.
“The state’s light empt for decentralized technology is in favor of highly centralized blockchain solutions, so we can see it in these actions,” Stadelmann said. “Project Acacia doesn’t focus on open and permitted blockchain technology, but instead, like many traditional financial blockchain projects, will be allowed.”
Permitted blockchains are private networks that are restricted to participants with access and activity approved, such as transaction validation and smart contract deployment.
These systems are typically managed by central entities or consortiums and are often used by governments, banks, or businesses for compliance and management.
In contrast, unauthorized blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are open to everyone. They rely on decentralized consensus mechanisms to allow users to participate without a gatekeeper.
Advocates argue the value that they offer greater transparency, censorship resistance and innovation, and that some critics say is not in state-backed or institution-driven blockchain initiatives.
In this project, 19 pilots will include real money and real assets transactions, while five proof-of-concept cases use simulated transactions.
Included in settlement assets stablecoinsbank deposit tokens, and pilot wholesale Central bank digital currency, In addition to the new application of bank’s existing exchange settlement accounts at RBA.
Pilot Wholesale CBDC Issuance occurs on multiple distributed ledger technology platforms, including Hedera, Redbelly Network, R3 Corda, Canvas Connect, and other EVM compatible networks.
The test will run for six months and the findings will be published in the first quarter of 2026.
This project is one of the key initiatives outlined within the government. statement It sets Australia’s strategy for blockchain and digital asset development for the development of the innovative Australian digital asset industry.
Stadelmann questioned whether the country’s approach to adopting open blockchain solutions would “leave Australia in a dark age and more advanced jurisdiction.”
“If a state only benefits a certain type of blockchain project, a two-tier system is automatically created, not other types,” he said.
“Australia is offering public centralized solutions and stripping away the real innovations that blockchain offers,” Stadelmann added, warning that if successful, the project “will “tradictional financial systems become even more entrenched in society and bring about even greater financial management than before.”