[Global On-Chain Projects File.011] Project Acacia
What kind of money is needed for the tokenized market?
CBDCs, tokenized deposits, stablecoins—are they all necessary?
Last updated: August 2026
The on-chain financial projects we have looked at so far have each used different forms of money for settlement.
Project Agorá uses commercial bank deposits and central bank reserves. mBridge uses wholesale CBDCs. EnsembleTX uses tokenized deposits and existing RTGS. Pontes focuses on connectivity to central bank money. BLOOM targets tokenized bank liabilities and regulated stablecoins.
So, which form of money is most suitable for tokenized financial markets?
Project Acacia, conducted by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre, is a project that examined this question head-on.
In its final report published in May 2026, the project tested 20 wholesale market use cases using a variety of settlement monies, including traditional central bank account balances, pilot wCBDCs, tokenized commercial bank deposits, and stablecoins. The RBA also issued pilot wCBDCs on both public and private DLTs.
Project Card
Entity: Reserve Bank of Australia / DFCRC
Scope: Australian wholesale tokenized market
Verification: 20 use cases
Settlement Money: ESA balances, wCBDC, tokenized deposits, stablecoins
Status: Final report published. Moving to next steps to support transition to commercial markets.
Why Acacia is interesting
Many CBDC pilots verify
whether a CBDC can be issued
.
Acacia's question is slightly different.
Is a CBDC truly necessary?
.
Settling tokenized bonds. Moving tokenized collateral. Automating repos. Instant redemption of funds.
To achieve these, it is not necessarily required to put central bank money itself onto a DLT.
One could also synchronize the existing RBA Exchange Settlement Account (ESA) with an external DLT.
Bank deposits may be tokenized.
Depending on the conditions, stablecoins may also be used.
Acacia considers "tokenizing assets" and "tokenizing money" as separate concepts.
What are the differences between the four types of money?
The first is existing central bank money.
It utilizes the ESA balances that financial institutions hold at the RBA as they are, synchronizing them with asset transactions on DLT.
The advantage is that there is no need to significantly change existing systems, liquidity management, or legal finality.
The second is CBDC (wholesale CBDC, wCBDC).
By placing central bank money itself into a DLT environment, assets and funds can be programmed on the same platform or on closely linked platforms.
Compatibility with DvP, conditional payments, and 24/7 availability is enhanced.
The third is tokenized commercial bank deposits.
Bank deposits used daily by corporations and institutional investors can be made programmable as they are. On the other hand, the issue remains of how to interoperate deposits from different issuing banks and perform final settlement between banks.
The fourth is stablecoins.
While they have high connectivity with external digital asset markets and are easy to use even on public chains, their issuer credit, reserve assets, redemption, and regulatory design differ from those of bank deposits and central bank money.
Acacia's conclusion was not that "wCBDC is the winner"
This is the most important point.
The RBA ultimately concludes that:
interoperable tokenized deposits and stablecoins can support the tokenized market, while central bank money will maintain its foundational role in the future financial system
and organizes it as such.
And furthermore,
Many of the benefits of tokenization can also be realized with existing ESA balances
they state. While research into wCBDC will continue, they have not concluded that a "tokenized market equals a mandatory wCBDC."
This is a highly significant implication.
What is necessary for central bank money is
not necessarily "being a token," but rather the ability to settle safely and synchronously with digital asset transactions
because of this.
Relationship with Pontes and Helvetia
This line of thinking is very close to the ECB's Pontes.
Pontes bridges asset DLTs with existing TARGET Services.
On the other hand, in Project Helvetia, which we will cover next time,
a method of placing wCBDC directly onto DLTand
a method of synchronizing existing RTGS with DLT
are being verified in parallel by the same central bank.
In other words, the common question among the world's central banks has shifted from
"Whether or not to create a CBDC"
to
"Through which interface should central bank money be provided to the tokenized market?"
instead.
What Project Acacia demonstrated
The greatest implication of Acacia is that it did not decide on a "winner for digital money."
In the tokenized market,
There are situations where central bank money is necessary.
There are situations where commercial bank deposits are optimal.
There are situations where stablecoins are suitable for connecting to public markets.
The important thing is not to unify everything into a single type of money.
It is that different forms of money can interoperate while maintaining par value and liquidity.
The answer to the question in the title is,
What is needed for the tokenized market is not one 'correct money'.
It is to use multiple forms of money according to the use case, while maintaining central bank money as the ultimate anchor of trust.
as follows.
Main reference materials: RBA/DFCRC Project Acacia Final Report and the summary of final results by the RBA.
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