Advancing wholesale tokenized markets in Australia
Project Acacia is a national initiative led by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC), exploring how digital money and distributed ledger infrastructure can support the development of wholesale tokenised asset markets.
The project brings together public and private sector participants to test real-world settlement models for tokenised assets using HashSphere, Hedera, and other permissioned DLT platforms—strengthening Australia’s financial market infrastructure for the digital age.
The Challenge: Modernizing wholesale markets without compromising trust
Wholesale financial markets rely on complex settlement infrastructure that must balance efficiency, resilience, and regulatory certainty. As tokenisation of real-world assets accelerates, market participants and regulators face a critical question: how can new forms of digital money be safely integrated into existing wholesale market structures?
Key challenges include:
- Supporting multiple forms of digital money alongside existing settlement assets
- Maintaining regulatory oversight and financial stability
- Enabling interoperability across public and private infrastructures
- Testing real-money settlement models without introducing systemic risk
Traditional systems lack the flexibility to support tokenised assets at scale, while purely public blockchain networks may not meet regulatory or operational requirements for wholesale markets.
The Solution: Private and public DLT working together
Project Acacia explores a hybrid approach, using HashSphere—a private, permissioned network built on Hedera technology—alongside Hedera’s public network to support wholesale settlement and tokenised asset use cases. HashSphere was selected for its ability to:
- Support regulated, private transaction environments
- Meet institutional security, governance, and compliance requirements
- Interoperate seamlessly with Hedera’s public network and other DLT platforms
This architecture enables participants to test real-world settlement flows while preserving flexibility, transparency, and regulatory confidence.
Real-World Use Cases: Digital money for tokenized wholesale assets
Twenty-four industry use cases were conditionally selected, spanning asset classes such as:
- Fixed income
- Private markets
- Trade receivables
- Carbon credits
Settlement assets under exploration include:
- Stablecoins
- Bank deposit tokens
- Pilot wholesale CBDC
- Existing Exchange Settlement Accounts at the RBA
Nineteen use cases involve real money and real asset transactions, demonstrating production-grade applicability rather than theoretical experimentation.
Public and private sectors, aligned
Project Acacia is supported by ASIC, APRA, and the Australian Treasury, with regulatory relief provided to enable responsible testing of tokenised asset transactions.
This collaborative model allows regulators and industry participants to:
- Observe real-world behaviour of tokenised settlement models
- Identify operational and regulatory risks early
- Build evidence to inform future policy and infrastructure decisions
The project is one of the initiatives highlighted in the Australian Government’s Statement on Developing an Innovative Australian Digital Asset Industry (March 2025).
HashSphere and Hedera: infrastructure designed for institutional markets
Hashgraph supports Project Acacia by delivering and operating HashSphere, providing a secure, private environment for regulated settlement activity, while enabling interoperability with Hedera’s public network.
This combination demonstrates how:
- Private networks can support sensitive wholesale activity
- Public networks can provide transparency, resilience, and ecosystem connectivity
- Institutions can adopt DLT without locking into a single deployment model
As the team behind the Hedera codebase and the builders of HashSphere, Hashgraph ensures both environments evolve together, reducing long-term infrastructure risk.
Impact
Project Acacia represents a significant step toward understanding how digital money and tokenised assets can operate within Australia’s wholesale financial markets.
Findings from the project will:
- Support the RBA’s ongoing research into the future of money
- Inform regulatory and infrastructure decisions
- Help determine which settlement models best enable tokenised real-world asset markets
A final report on the outcomes is expected in Q1 2026.
Summary
Project Acacia demonstrates how private and public DLT infrastructure can work together to support real-world, regulated wholesale markets. By combining HashSphere’s private network capabilities with Hedera’s public ledger, the initiative provides a blueprint for how digital money and tokenised assets can be safely integrated into national financial systems.
