Australian markets could see billions in savings via tokenization: RBA

The adoption of a wholesale central bank digital currency could be the most stable and risk-free option, the RBA official said Sunday

article-image

australian dollars savings jar

share

Brad Jones, the assistant governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, outlined the potential benefits of adopting tokenization of domestic markets during a weekend speech.

Speaking at the Australian Financial Review Cryptocurrency Summit on Sunday, Jones emphasized the possibilities of integrating tokenization into Australia’s financial infrastructure.

“The first set of estimates points to hypothetical transaction cost savings in Australian financial markets in the range of $1 – 4 billion AUS [$631 million – $2.52 billion] per year,” Jones said. 

Jones cited potential savings that could rise to as much as $13 billion AUS [$8.2 billion] per year for issuers, based on assumptions including “reduced liquidity premia” and lowered costs of the new issuance of financial instruments.

However, Jones cautioned that the figures are “not forecasts” but rather hypothetical scenarios grounded by certain assumptions. 

“Ultimately, it won’t be possible to make concrete statements about the effects of asset tokenization…until the ecosystem is better developed,” he said.

Read more: Legal frameworks ‘must keep up’ for CBDC implementation: BIS

Jones outlined multiple candidates for tokenized money, including unbacked cryptocurrencies, asset-backed stablecoins and tokenized bank deposits. He suggested that the adoption of a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) could be the most stable and risk-free option.

“Of the various forms of tokenized money under consideration, only a wholesale CBDC would be completely free of credit and liquidity risk,” Jones said.

Australia is currently exploring the possibility of retail CBDCs, which differ from wholesale CBDCs, with the central bank conducting research to explore their feasibility and potential to reduce capital friction.

The bank initiated a sandbox exploration of potential CBDC applications in August.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Unlocked by Template (7).png

Research

Union’s improvements upon Tendermint consensus through CometBLS, coupled with ZK proving through Galois, allow for a broadly scalable, cost efficient, and low latency IBC implementation that is feasibly scalable across every existing blockchain, virtual machine and runtime. The implementation offers modular crosschain interoperability without the need for trusted intermediaries.  

article-image

The drop gives buyers Adidas outfits for their in-game characters, but the game hasn’t fully released yet

article-image

In 1999, Daniel Bernstein fought for code to be protected, just like free speech

article-image

Sentora aims to create an ecosystem focused on institutional investors’ DeFi needs

article-image

Using Bitcoin as a model, Vitalik’s new priority for Ethereum is technical simplicity

article-image

Solana leaders privately told validators to upgrade their software