The Reserve Bank of Australia Advances Project Acacia, Testing CBDC and Tokenized Asset Settlement

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) announced on Thursday that its key project, "Project Acacia," is entering the next phase of testing, which will explore how crypto assets and central bank digital currencies (CBDC) can support the development of the country's wholesale tokenized asset market. The project plans to test 24 use cases in the next phase, with participants including fintech companies and major banks such as Commonwealth Bank of Australia, ANZ, and Westpac. The tests will cover a variety of settlement assets, including stablecoins, bank deposit tokens, and pilot wholesale CBDCs. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) stated that it will provide regulatory relief to project participants to test tokenized asset trading. The project is a joint initiative of the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre, and is an important part of the Australian government's "fit-for-purpose" digital asset framework. (The Block) [Odaily Planet Daily]