# RWA Daily Update - 2026-08-05

## Lesson title

**Project Mariana shows that automated market-maker ideas can be tested for wholesale FX settlement, but a pilot does not answer governance, legal-status, privacy, RTGS-integration or CBDC-issuance questions.**

## Sources checked

1. **BIS Innovation Hub - Project Mariana: cross-border exchange of wholesale CBDCs using automated market-makers**  
   URL: https://www.bis.org/publ/othp75.htm  
   Official PDF: https://www.bis.org/publ/othp75.pdf  
   Publication date shown on BIS page: 28 September 2023.  
   Accessed: 2026-08-05 PDT.  
   Retrieval: official BIS HTML retrieved successfully with Python urllib (HTTP 200; 29,195 bytes; title: "Project Mariana: cross-border exchange of wholesale CBDCs using automated market-makers"). Official PDF retrieved successfully (1,023,317 bytes; 37 pages) and parsed locally with `pypdf`.

2. **Existing Managing Expectations RWA source trail**  
   Checked local `rwa.html` and prior RWA notes through 2026-08-04 to avoid repeating recent lessons on ECB settlement tests, the UK Digital Securities Sandbox, Basel cryptoasset classifications, Project Jura, Project Aurum, MAS Project Guardian, CFTC tokenized collateral, Franklin fund recordkeeping and prior BIS settlement/DvP/PvP lessons.

## Extracted official-source facts

- The BIS page says foreign exchange is the largest financial market in the world, trading about $7.5 trillion a day.
- The BIS page says Project Mariana explored how future FX trading and settlement could look if central banks issued CBDCs and financial market infrastructures included elements of decentralised finance.
- BIS says the proof of concept demonstrated technical feasibility of automated market-makers for cross-border trading and settlement of hypothetical Swiss franc, euro and Singapore dollar wholesale CBDCs.
- BIS says the project borrowed ideas from DeFi and used a public blockchain to design and test a transnational FX interbank market using wholesale CBDCs.
- The PDF says wCBDCs circulated on domestic platforms and bridges moved them onto a transnational network hosting the AMM.
- The PDF says the primary objective was a 24/7 wCBDC ecosystem with an interbank FX market based on an AMM, using hypothetical EUR, SGD and CHF wCBDCs.
- The PDF says Project Mariana left several aspects out of scope, including AMM governance models, governance for domestic platforms and the transnational network, technical performance and privacy, links to existing systems such as RTGS, remuneration of central-bank money, and legal aspects such as the status of the transnational network and the wCBDC.
- BIS explicitly states that the project is purely experimental and does not indicate that the involved central banks intend to issue CBDC or endorse DeFi or a particular technological solution.

## No-hype summary

Project Mariana is useful for RWA learning because it separates a technical mechanism from a complete market design. Automated market-makers can be used as a research tool for wholesale FX between hypothetical central-bank tokens, but that does not mean public DeFi liquidity pools are automatically suitable for regulated securities, funds or bonds. The hard institutional questions remain: who governs the AMM, who can access it, what law applies to the transnational network, how privacy and performance work, how the system connects to RTGS/core banking, and whether any central bank would actually issue the settlement asset.

For tokenized real-world assets, the lesson is that a clever trading or settlement algorithm is not the legal system, the issuer, the custodian, the regulator or the central bank.

## Page lesson draft

Project Mariana is a good reminder that tokenized-market plumbing can borrow ideas from DeFi without becoming retail DeFi. BIS, the Banque de France, the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Swiss National Bank tested a proof of concept for cross-border spot FX settlement using automated market-makers and hypothetical euro, Singapore dollar and Swiss franc wholesale CBDCs.

The interesting detail is that the AMM was only one component. The BIS report describes domestic platforms where wholesale CBDCs circulate, bridges that move those tokens onto a transnational network, and an AMM that hosts the FX exchange. BIS says the proof of concept demonstrated technical feasibility, but it also states the project was purely experimental and did not indicate that any central bank intends to issue CBDC or endorse DeFi or a particular technology.

The no-hype lesson: a clever liquidity algorithm is not a complete financial market. Mariana explicitly left major questions out of scope, including AMM governance, governance of the networks, privacy and performance, links to RTGS systems, remuneration of central-bank money, and legal status. **Watch question:** when an RWA platform says it uses AMM or DeFi-style settlement, who governs the pool, who may access it, what law controls it, and what real settlement asset is moving?

## Editorial cautions

Educational only. This is not investment, legal, tax, custody, CBDC, DeFi, FX, securities, market-infrastructure or central-bank advice. Project Mariana was a proof of concept using hypothetical wholesale CBDCs; it is not a production market, DeFi endorsement, CBDC launch announcement, or evidence that any tokenized asset is safe, liquid, redeemable, legally final or suitable for any holder.