The Reserve Bank of Australia is putting its support behind the real-world asset tokenization sector, citing recent analysis that it could contribute 24 billion Australian dollars ($16.7 billion) to the economy per year.
Australia’s central bank assistant governor Brad Jones shared findings from Project Acacia on Wednesday, commenting that tokenized finance and related infrastructure upgrades will be “revolutionary,” according to advocates.
He said that potential gains for the Australian economy from RWA tokenization were on the order of $16.7 billion per year, “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 consulting firm McKinsey & Company has forecasted that the value of tokenized assets could hit nearly $2 trillion by 2030. The head of Australia’s securities regulator, Joe Longo, in November urged the country to “seize the opportunity” or be left behind.
Project Acacia is the RBA’s collaborative research project run with the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre and industry groups.
It was built on a previous central bank digital currency pilot and explored 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 partner with agencies and industry groups to explore a “new digital financial market infrastructure (DFMI) sandbox.”
He added that this could allow industry and policymakers to build on the learnings from Project Acacia.
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It could also “smooth the path to practical implementation by providing a safe space for the testing and scaling of tokenized money, assets, and new infrastructure in a longer-term, stage-gated environment,” he said, adding that it could be tied in 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 concluded that ensuring Australia’s payments, monetary and financial infrastructure arrangements are “fit for purpose” in the digital age is a “strategic priority for the RBA.”
The total RWA market onchain value hit a record high of $27.5 billion last week, excluding stablecoins, according to RWA.xyz. The sector has seen huge growth, surging by 234% over the past 12 months despite the broader crypto asset bear market.
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