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Hong Kong To Issue Stablecoin Licenses In Coming Months

by admin June 24, 2025

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As crypto-related legislation and adoption continue around the globe, Hong Kong’s Financial Secretary revealed that the regulators will begin issuing stablecoin licenses to qualified issuers in the next few months.

Hong Kong Preparing To Issue Licenses

Speaking to local news outlet China Daily, Hong Kong’s Financial Secretary, Paul Chan Mo-po, affirmed that the Monetary Authority (HKMA) will begin issuing licenses for stablecoin issuers in the coming months following the passage of the related bill a month ago.

On May 21, Hong Kong’s Legislative Council passed the long-awaited Stablecoins Ordinance, requiring any individual or entity seeking to issue a fiat-referenced stablecoin (FRS) in the jurisdiction, or any Hong Kong Dollar (HKD)-pegged token, to obtain a license from the HKMA.

Under the legislation, which will take effect on August 1, licensed entities will be allowed to offer FRS in Hong Kong, while retail investors will be able to access the tokens issued only by these qualified institutions.

The ordinance aims to reinforce regulatory oversight on the digital assets industry, fostering innovation and “responsible, sustainable” development, the Financial Secretary reportedly stated.

According to Daily China, he also revealed that the Hong Kong government is taking a “step-by-step” approach to develop the sector, attempting to ensure balanced growth with regulation as the first step of its phased plan.

Chan said that the second step might involve stablecoins linked to other assets that are “integrated with the real economy,” adding that they must have practical use cases, instead of “being speculative instruments.”

Notably, he considers that “The stablecoin, particularly when it is referenced to fiat currencies, (has) many use case scenarios,” including cross-border payments to enhance efficiency and reduce costs.

Big Companies Eye Stablecoin Adoption

Hong Kong’s Financial Secretary stated that regulators have received several applications from entities seeking to become qualified issuers, adding that the licenses will start being issued in a few months.

According to recent reports, multiple companies have applied for the HKMA license this month, including logistics technology firm Reitar Logtech and the overseas arm of Chinese mainland financial technology giant Ant Group.

Additionally, e-commerce giant JD.com, through its fintech arm JD Coinlink, has been testing HKD-pegged tokens under the regulator’s sandbox program. Per the report, several financial and technology firms have been testing the stablecoin issuer sandbox since July 2024.

JD Coinlink’s CEO, Liu Peng, affirmed that the company expects to obtain the HKMA’s license in early Q4 2025 and launch a JD Stablecoin simultaneously, detailing that the firm ended its second phase of testing last month.

Meanwhile, several tech giants are also exploring similar approaches in the US to optimize cross-border payments and transaction costs. As reported by Bitcoinist, multiple Big Tech companies, including Apple, X, Airbnb, and Google, are in early discussions with various crypto firms to integrate stablecoins.

This move follows the bipartisan push from US lawmakers and the Trump administration to pass two crucial crypto-related bills, the GENIUS Act and Clarity Act, before the early August legislative recess.

Bitcoin (BTC) trades at $102,555 in the one-week chart. Source: BTCUSDT on TradingView

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June 24, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Even Nvidia’s China-specific RTX 5090D falls victim to the infamous 16-pin melting issue

by admin June 21, 2025

The Chinese-exclusive GeForce RTX 5090D, which has the potential to rival the best graphics cards, is the latest Blackwell graphics card to be affected by issues related to 16-pin (12VHPWR) power connector meltdowns. Uniko’s Hardware has unearthed two recent instances of the GeForce RTX 5090D with melted 16-pin power connectors, reported on the Baidu Tieba forums.

With the introduction of the revised 12V-2×6 power connector, we had hoped the meltdown issue was behind us. However, doubt still remains since every once in a while, we see a user report pop up on the Internet. While reports of 16-pin power meltdowns have become less frequent, they haven’t disappeared entirely. As we’ve seen, there is no specific incubation period for the meltdowns; it can occur a few days or weeks after the build, or sometimes even years later.

A Baidu Tieba user reported that his Aorus GeForce RTX 5090D Master Ice functioned well for two months before the 16-pin power connector melted. He reportedly used the native 16-pin power cable supplied with his Segotep KL-1250G power supply. Segotep, a well-known Chinese manufacturer, has over two decades of experience under its belt. The KL-1250G is an ATX 3.0 power supply rated at 1,250W and certified for 80 Plus Gold efficiency.

Every bank will issue a stablecoin after GENIUS Act passage: Alchemy CTO

by admin June 18, 2025

Guillaume Poncin of Alchemy predicts that the passage of the Genius Act will soon bring major financial institutions into the stablecoin business.

The U.S. Senate has passed the Genius Act, bringing long-awaited regulatory clarity to stablecoins. With this development, major financial institutions are expected to roll out their own stablecoins. Guillaume Poncin, CTO of Alchemy, gave an interview to crypto.news. Alchemy is working with Visa, Coinbase, Stripe, and Robinhood on stablecoin issuance.

Until now, major banks have held back, waiting for clear regulations, a need the new bill addresses. Poncin believes that, in the future, every bank will issue its own stablecoin and operate its own blockchain.

crypto.news: You have recently suggested that banks will soon issue their stablecoins and run their blockchains. What are the main advantages of this move for them and their clients?

GP: For banks, issuing their own stablecoins allows them to capture the float on reserves, with the ability to bring in hundreds of millions in annual revenue from treasury yields at current rates. They also maintain control over their customer relationships and transaction flows rather than ceding that to third-party issuers.

For clients, bank-issued stablecoins offer instant settlement, 24/7 availability, and programmable money that is backed by the trust and regulatory protections of traditional banking relationships. The right Web3 infrastructure makes it feasible for banks to launch these capabilities without years of blockchain development.

CN: If banks get into the stablecoin business, what does this mean for major stablecoin issuers like Circle and Tether?

GP: Circle and Tether have established themselves as the default rails for crypto-native use cases and international transfers. Banks can focus on different segments, like corporate treasury, regulated institutional flows, and integration with existing banking services. Owning your own stablecoin provides additional asset control and the ability to generate yield.

The market is massive and growing. There’s room for specialized players. Circle’s upcoming IPO actually validates this thesis because it shows that traditional finance recognizes stablecoins as legitimate infrastructure. We power infrastructure for both existing issuers and banks exploring this space, and we’re seeing a playing field with ample room to offer new products and grow the market.

CN: Given Alchemy’s role powering USDC (via Circle), what differences do you see in how issuers like Tether and Circle approach minting, compliance, and infrastructure decisions?

GP: Circle has taken a highly regulated, transparent approach, with regular attestations, clear banking relationships, and working closely with regulators. This makes USDC attractive for institutional use cases and integration with traditional finance.

Tether operates more like a global liquidity provider in that it prioritizes availability and ease of use across markets.

From an infrastructure perspective, Circle tends to be more conservative with technical changes, while Tether is more expansive about going multi-chain. Both have their trade-offs; institutions may favor USDC for compliance and transparency, while developers or platforms focused on emerging market access might tap Tether for reach.

CN: Blockchain infrastructure is difficult to manage and secure. Do you think that banks will favor layer-1 or layer-2 networks? What does this mean for large layer-2 ecosystems like Ethereum?

GP: It depends on the use case. For large-scale operations like B2B transactions, banks may prefer operating directly on Layer 1 for maximum security and finality. However, for retail-scale applications, Layer 2 networks make the most sense because they offer sub-cent transaction costs, customizable security settings, and the ability to capture transaction revenue through sequencer fees. For example, Coinbase already generates over $200 million annually from Base, their L2.

This is actually bullish for Ethereum. L2s still settle on Ethereum, so they benefit from its security. We’re seeing a Cambrian explosion of specialized L2s. Some are optimized for payments, others for trading or identity. Banks can choose or build an L2 that matches their specific compliance and performance requirements while inheriting Ethereum’s battle-tested security. That’s where modular rollup stacks come in handy. With solutions like Alchemy’s rollups-as-a-service (Raas), institutions can launch tailored L2s that inherit Ethereum’s security while offering full control over execution, fees, data availability, and more.

CN: Banks require constant communication to facilitate transactions between their respective clients. How do you envision the interoperability between their blockchains in this context?

GP: Interoperability is the most important challenge, but it’s solvable. We’re already seeing solutions emerge with cross-chain messaging protocols, shared sequencer networks, and atomic swap mechanisms. The key is that, unlike traditional correspondent banking, blockchain interoperability can be trustless and instant.

I envision a model where major bank chains connect through established protocols, similar to how international wire transfers work today, but without the multi-day settlement times. Over time, we’ll see more sophisticated solutions, perhaps shared rollup infrastructures where banks can maintain sovereignty while enabling interoperability.

CN: What is Alchemy’s role in facilitating this financial institution’s tapping into blockchain technology?

GP: We’re the infrastructure layer that makes blockchain accessible to institutions without requiring them to become blockchain experts. Think of us as the AWS for Web3. We handle the node management, wallet and rollup Infrastructure, data indexing, and reliability challenges so banks can focus on building products.

Specifically, we provide the APIs and developer tools that power everything from simple balance queries to complex DeFi integrations. We’re working with major banks and fintechs who use our infrastructure for everything from custody solutions to launching their own chains.

After the SAB 121 repeal, we saw an immediate surge in inquiries from the largest banks in the world. They’re not asking “if” anymore, they’re asking “how fast can we move?” Our role is to make that transition as seamless as possible.

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June 18, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Game Pass And PS Plus New Release FBC: Firebreak Has A Major Matchmaking Issue On Launch Day

by admin June 17, 2025

Alan Wake developer Remedy’s new multiplayer shooter, FBC: Firebreak, launched today across console and PC. The release didn’t go exactly to plan, however, as Remedy has identified what sounds like a pretty significant matchmaking issue causing headaches for some players.

In a social media post, Remedy said it’s aware of an issue causing “most players” to fail to match together, with the result being people getting into matches alone. Firebreak is meant to be played with other people.

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Now Playing: FBC: Firebreak – Gameplay Trailer

“We are working on a hotfix for this issue, which we expect to hit Steam later today [June 17], with other platforms following as soon as possible,” Remedy said. It’s important to note that this hotfix will already significantly help cross-platform matchmaking across the entire player base.”

For the time being, Remedy said it advised players to use the Quick Play option to try to join matches. The developer said this should ensure players find matches populated with other users. Alternatively, Remedy said people can group up with two other people using the Party Code system and launch as a team.

“Thank you for your understanding,” the developer said.

In other news, FBC’s game director Mike Kayatta shared a heartfelt message celebrating the game’s launch. “For years, our small team has been hard at work building a game that we, ourselves, would play with our friends. And what’s come from that effort is something made from passion and grit that we couldn’t be more excited to share with the world,” he said.

Kyatta went on to say that Remedy is not celebrating because it’s done with FBC, but instead because “we’re finally starting.”

“By putting Firebreak in your hands, we’re officially opening our doors to you and to every other player who wants to join us in being part of its future. Working together, we can and will continue to grow this game into the best version of itself that it can be,” Kyatta said.

FBC is available through Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus, or it can be purchased outright for $40. It’s a co-op first-person shooter that takes place “within a mysterious federal agency under assault by otherworldly forces.”

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June 17, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

Fast Fusion may be the most technically impressive Switch 2 launch title – but image quality is an issue

by admin June 12, 2025

While many of Switch 2’s launch games are merely ports of existing games, the platform currently excels in one key area – racing games. For my money, there’s nothing better than a system launch packed full of arcade racing action and, in that sense, Switch 2 doesn’t disappoint. Mario Kart World is the system’s biggest title, while the original arcade version of Ridge Racer also makes its appearance – finally another system launch with a Ridge Racer game! Yet perhaps the most impressive racer on the system thus far, and also one of the most enjoyable games period, is Fast Fusion from Shin’en Multimedia.

We’ve featured Shin’en’s work on Digital Foundry many times over, most recently The Touryst, and for good reason: this Munich-based team has continued to produce amazing, tightly designed games across multiple genres, all while maintaining an exceptionally small team.

Fast Fusion is a proper sequel to the original Switch’s Fast RMX and the Wii U’s Fast Racing Neo, offering new mechanics and massively enhanced visuals while aiming for a fluid 60fps. At the same time, the game looks weirdly pixelated, so I wanted to investigate this issue and determine what’s going on.

Launching on the original Switch with Fast RMX was an awesome choice by Shin’en but, ultimately, it was an enhanced and expanded port of Fast Racing Neo for Wii U – which, to be fair, few people probably played given the console’s lack of success. With Fast Fusion, however, we finally have a proper sequel to that game. All new tracks, new mechanics and the fusion concept work in tandem to create something very special and fun. However, it was the visuals that caught our attention, with modern rendering techniques producing a stunning experience at 60fps.

Fast Fusion is the surprise essential launch game for Switch 2. Watch on YouTube

The biggest upgrades stem from fundamental changes to the lighting and materials model deployed in Shinen’s proprietary engine. It needed to be beautiful but also robust enough to handle the game’s enormous, high-speed tracks. More traditional light probe solutions were too memory-intensive – according to Shin’en, it would require upwards of 1GB of lighting data for just a single track. Furthermore, screen-space lighting alone wouldn’t be sufficient, as ambient and specular lighting were both necessary to pull off the look.

To solve this, they engineered a hybrid system – blending multiple lighting techniques with a mix of dynamic caching and a small amount of baked lighting data. Lighting data per track comes in at just 5 to 15MB total, while pre-calculation only needs 1 to 2 minutes per track. This means the game only needs around 120MB of baked lighting data in total, keeping the file size down to just 3.5GB in a proud Shin’en tradition.

There’s also an abundance of volumetric fog introduced in the game, basically simulating light scattering through the atmosphere. Volumetrics are usually rendered at much lower resolutions to maintain performance, especially on a bandwidth-constrained mobile system, but in Fast Fusion the devs were able to blend the 3D froxel volume rendered at a very low resolution with a screen-space upsampling pass to improve the fog. It’s impressively stable and even supports variable occlusion based on moving environmental details – so it is not static!

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The performance implications are huge, with all lighting calculations being deferred and executed entirely on the GPU, so there’s zero CPU cost. Better still, the system scales linearly with resolution, so the lighting cost remains fixed at just 0.5ms whether you’re playing solo or in 4-player split screen.

However, it’s this scalability with resolution that connects us back to perhaps the game’s one visual foible – image quality. Shin’en has often deployed clever image quality tricks to squeeze more out of a piece of hardware. Fast Racing Neo, for instance, uses interlaced rendering while Fast RMX uses both dynamic resolution scaling and variable rate shading.

Fast Fusion, is a little different, with pixel counts during camera cuts revealing heavy DLSS upscaling. The 1080p mode seems to render around 540p, 1440p mode is weirdly slightly lower at 504p, while the 4K60 mode renders at roughly 648p. Portable mode seems slightly lower than this as well, though it only needs to upsample to a 1080p screen. The huge upscale factors needed to target a 4K screen cause the significant image break-up evident in the game’s fast-paced visuals. That’s the main weakness here, and in terms of raw pixel output, Fast RMX on the Switch actually runs at a higher resolution with more stable image quality.

The developers do seem aware of the issues with the DLSS presentation though, and a patch expected next week will add a “pure” mode that strips out DLSS in favour of a straight 1440p docked and 1080p handheld experience.

Here’s a glance at how each mode compares visually – there’s little between them, save for the resolution differences and some extra settings tweaks on ultra quality. | Image credit: Digital Foundry

Regardless of the image quality concerns, the frame-rates on the four modes available now are excellent, with performance, balanced and quality modes all running at a near-locked 60fps, while the quality mode drops down to 30fps. Interestingly, the quality mode also disables real-time shadows in order to maximise resolution – a trade-off that’s not really worth it.

Beyond image quality, the rest of the visuals deserve plenty of praise. We already talked about lighting but the actual quality of the materials, the track detail and the ships are all wonderful. I love the subtle specular reflections on tracks with shiny or wet materials. The tracks themselves are also massively more detailed than anything in Fast RMX and the quality of the post-processing is improved as well, with sublime motion blur . Weather looks great too, with the rain and droplets forming on the screen looking suitably dramatic.

Fast Fusion also features an excellent HDR implementation, better distinction between highlights and darker regions of the image than Nintendo’s own games. In portable mode, this is limited by the screen, but on a proper HDR display, it really pops. All this is to say that, despite the chunky image quality, it is genuinely a stunning game and I still believe it’s the most technically impressive game of the launch lineup, due to its mix of high-quality visuals and fast performance.

Fast Fusion on Switch 2 actually runs at a lower base resolution than Fast RMX on the OG Switch. | Image credit: Digital Foundry

Another aspect I wanted to briefly mention is the audio – Fast Fusion supports full surround sound, for starters, which is something that was relatively uncommon on the original Switch – hopefully we’ll see it more often this time. The sound work is really well done, and the music steals the show with proper high-energy electronic tracks that perfectly suit the action.

To wrap this up, though, let’s talk about the game. Now this is an interesting one because Nintendo has released F-Zero GX alongside the console via the GameCube NSO app. GX is one of the best futuristic racing games ever made, so how does Fast Fusion compete?

Well, fundamentally, while they’re both very fast, the core mechanics are rather different. Fusion focuses on a blue/orange mechanic that requires you to match your ship’s colour to the boost pads you hit, similar to Treasure’s Ikaruga. Adding the ability to jump to the mix makes the game so much more exciting, not only by allowing for more branching track designs and pickups in different locations, but introducing some risk/reward, as it’s easy to jump off the track or crash into a bridge.

All in all, though, even with its shortcomings, I think Fast Fusion is a must-have launch title for Switch 2. With so few choices in terms of actual new games, it’s a no-brainer, really.

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June 12, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

A worrying Windows SecureBoot issue could let hackers install malware – here’s what we know, and whether you need to update

by admin June 11, 2025

Binarly spotted a legitimate utility, trusted on most modern systems utilizing UEFI firmware, carrying a flaw
The flaw allowed threat actors to deploy bootkit malware
Microsoft patched it the June 2025 Patch Tuesday cumulative update

Microsoft has fixed a Secure Boot vulnerability that allowed threat actors to turn off security solutions and install bootkit malware on most PCs.

Security researchers Binarly recently discovered a legitimate BIOS update utility, signed with Microsoft’s UEFI CA 2011 certificate. This root certificate, used in the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) Secure Boot process, plays a central role in verifying the authenticity and integrity of bootloaders, operating systems, and other low-level software before a system boots.

According to the researchers, the utility is trusted on most modern systems utilizing UEFI firmware – but the problem stems from the fact it reads a user-writable NVRAM variable without proper validation, meaning an attacker with admin access to an operating system can modify the variable and write arbitrary data to memory locations during the UEFI boot process.

South Korea Stablecoin Bill to Allow Companies to Issue the Tokens: Report

by admin June 10, 2025

In brief

Crypto-friendly Lee Jae-myung won the presidency in South Korea last week.
He is now pushing ahead with a stablecoins bill.
If approved, the law would allow companies to issue their own stablecoins.

South Korea’s newly elected president pushed ahead with a crypto-friendly agenda on Tuesday, announcing new stablecoin legislation, according to reports.

As first reported by Bloomberg, Lee Jae-myung, proposed the Digital Asset Basic Act—a law which, if approved, will allow companies to issue stablecoins if they have 500 million won ($366,749) in equity capital.

Stablecoins are digital tokens pegged to the value on a non-volatile asset—typically the U.S. dollar. Such cryptocurrencies run on a number of different blockchains and are supposed to be backed by reserves of the stable asset.

Crypto is popular in South Korea and Jae-myung—who won the election last week—is friendly toward the space. The Democratic Party leader in 2022 experimented with NFTs during his previous campaign and has said he will allow Bitcoin ETFs to trade in the country.

He has also proposed launching a won-pegged stablecoin to prevent capital flight, saying that the country urgently needs “to prevent national wealth from leaking overseas.”

And the Bank of Korea last month said it was considering issuing deposit tokens on a public blockchain to coexist with private stablecoins.

Stablecoins are a hot topic in the crypto industry: Regulators have been fighting over how to control the assets for years; President Trump backs one digital token; and lawmakers in Washington will vote on a stablecoin bill this week.

A number of high-profile businesses and banks are also weighing—or have already—launched stablecoin products.

Edited by James Rubin

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June 10, 2025 0 comments

Crypto Trends

Classover to Issue Up To $500M for SOL Reserve

by admin June 3, 2025

Classover, a K-12 education company, has announced a move into crypto through the creation of a Solana reserve.

The company plans to issue up to $500 million in senior convertible notes, with 80% of the proceeds allocated to purchasing Solana (SOL). The move follows a growing pattern of companies expanding into crypto-related strategies along with their core businesses.

According to a June 2 announcement, Classover has already purchased 6,472 SOL worth approximately $1.1 million to start its reserve. The issuance of $500 million in convertible notes comes through a partnership with Solana Growth Ventures.

Classover is an online education company offering learning courses for K-12 students worldwide. On June 3, a day after the announcement, its shares reached $5.45 on the Nasdaq, an intraday rise of 46.5% at the time of publication.

Classover shares’ intraday performance on June 3. Source: Google Finance

According to the company, the issuance of up to $500 million in convertible notes could be complementary to Classover’s $400 million equity purchase agreement. Combined, these two financing methods would bring the company’s Solana purchasing power to $900 million.

Related: DeFi Development Corp adds $11.5M SOL, shares jump 12%

Solana reserve companies

Classover’s pivot to a Solana reserve company marks a trend of some publicly traded companies turning to SOL to create more revenue streams and spark investor interest.

In May, SOL Strategies, a publicly traded Canadian company, sought regulatory permission to raise up to $1 billion for its SOL staking operations. The company’s Q2 2025 earnings report revealed a rise in validator and staking revenue.

Upexi, also listed on the Nasdaq, saw its shares soar 630% after it announced a $100 million raise in April, with 90% of the funds pledged to SOL purchases.

Magazine: Memecoins are ded — But Solana ‘100x better’ despite revenue plunge

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June 3, 2025 0 comments

GameFi Guides

TON Blockchain Back Online After Fixing Masterchain Issue

by admin June 1, 2025

The Open Network (TON), the blockchain closely tied to Telegram, briefly went offline on June 1. The issue was linked to a problem in how the main chain processed its data queue.

According to TON’s developers, block production was paused for a short time before the team pushed a fix. The network was back up within 40 minutes.

The developers said only a few main validators needed updates to get things moving again. They also confirmed that no funds were lost and all transactions made during the outage remained safe.

Block production has been restored ✅

A quick fix was released, and updating only a few master chain validators was sufficient to resume block production.

The incident was related to an error in the processing of the masterchain dispatch queue.

We will release a technical…

— TON 💎 (@ton_blockchain) June 1, 2025

A detailed technical report will be released soon to explain exactly what caused the problem.

Although brief outages are not unusual for fast-growing blockchain networks handling large amounts of data, they can still worry users. In this case, TON’s quick response helped limit the impact.

With Telegram relying more heavily on TON for its crypto plans, the network’s ability to stay stable will be under increasing pressure. For now, it’s back to normal — but questions about long-term reliability are likely to follow.

Also Read: How Teen Hackers Used an Indian Call Center to Breach Coinbase

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June 1, 2025 0 comments

JBL Tour One M3 over-ear noise-cancelling headphones on a white surface

Product Reviews

JBL Tour One M3 review: a determined attempt to dominate the over-ear noise-cancelling headphones market, with one issue

by admin May 31, 2025

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We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

JBL Tour One M3: two-minute review

JBL has pitched its new Tour One M3 wireless over-ear noise-cancellers right into the heart of the action. They’re priced to compete with hitters as big as Bose and Sony, but the company hasn’t just slapped a premium price-tag on and hoped for the best. These headphones are specified to compete, and even have an optional extra that elevates their functionality beyond that of any price-comparable rival.

Wireless connectivity, frequency response and battery life are all well up to standard. Control options are numerous and well implemented. And with the optional Smart Tx transmitter, JBL is able to turn the Tour One M3 into a wireless receiver of non-wireless sources, as well as facilitating group listening for as many people who have Auracast-compatible headphones would like to participate.

There’s no arguing with the standard of build and finish that’s on display here, either, though the majority of the plastics used in the construction don’t feel as expensive as you might expect in a product as pricey as this. Still, at least the comfort quotient is high, thanks to some judicious padding and a low overall weight.

JBL Tour One M3 review: Price and release date

Release date: April 15th, 2025
Price: $349 ($399 with Smart Tx transmitter); £329 (£379); AU$479 (AU$549)

You don’t need me to tell you this is serious money for a pair of wireless over-ear noise-cancellers, even before you add in the cost of the Smart Tx transmitter – $349 ($399 with the transmitter); £329 (£379); AU$479 (AU$549).

JBL has picked a fight with brands as credible as Bose, Bowers & Wilkins, Sennheiser and Sony (to name just four) by pricing the Tour ONE M3 this way, which can mean one of only two things. Either JBL is completely confident or JBL is utterly rash.

Whichever your preference, it’s probably not enough to put the JBL Tour One M3 among the contenders in the best wireless headphones market.

JBL Tour One M3 review: Specs

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Weight:

278g

Drivers:

40mm mica dome dynamic

Battery life:

40 hours (ANC on); up to 70 hours (ANC off)

Control:

app; physical/touch; voice

Bluetooth:

5.3 (SBC, AAC, LC3, LDAC)

(Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)

JBL Tour One M3 review: Features

Bluetooth 5.3 with LDAC codec compatibility
Up to 70 hours of battery life
Optional Smart Tx transmitter

There are boxes to be ticked when you’re charging this sort of money for a pair of wireless noise-cancelling over-ears, most of which are marked ‘the best version of X’, and the JBL Tour One M3 ticks all of them.

For instance, they use Bluetooth 5.3 for wireless connectivity, and feature multipoint connectivity as well as compatibility with LC3 and LDAC codecs as well as SBC and AAC. They will run for as much as 70 hours (at moderate volume and with noise-cancellation switched off) between charges, and you can expect 40 hours even if you listen at high volume and with ANC switched on.

The ANC itself is a three-stage system: choose between ‘ambient aware’ (an in-app slider controls how much of the outside world is allowed in), ‘talk-thru’ (which pauses music while significantly boosting external sounds, voices in particular) and ‘noise-cancelling’. There’s another slider here, to adjust ANC intensity – or you can switch on ‘adaptive ANC’ to automatically adjust the level based on ambient conditions. ‘Auto compensation’, meanwhile, assesses the headphones’ position on your ear relative to your ear canal in order to adjust ANC on the fly.

JBL suggests the Tour ONE M3 have a frequency response of 10Hz to 40kHz, which, if it’s anything like accurate, should be ample. Sound is served via a couple of 40mm mica dome dynamic drivers.

(Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)

The control app itself has plenty of functionality beyond fiddling with active noise-cancellation, of course – ‘JBL Headphones’ is free for iOS and Android and is one of the most comprehensive apps around.

For instance, it allows you to select a ‘spatial audio’ setting (‘fixed’, ‘head-tracking’ or ‘off’) and investigate your EQ options (there are six presets and the ability to specify some custom settings using a 10-band equalizer). You can take a hearing test to help the headphones adapt to your specific hearing profile, exert some influence of the physical methods of control, set a volume limiter and plenty more besides. These include checking on firmware updates and remaining battery life, plus adjusting the length of time without an incoming signal required before the headphones power down – basically, this app is a model of usefulness and stability.

Then there’s the Smart Tx transmitter (a cost option, let’s not forget), through which JBL has an authentic Point of Difference. If you’re familiar with the ‘retransmission case’ that the top-end Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 true wireless in-ears have been supplied with for the past few years, you’ll know one of the things the Smart Tx can do – attach it to a non-wireless source of music, such as the in-flight entertainment system, via one of its USB-C slots and it will wirelessly stream to the headphones.

But there’s more to this little brick than that. It also uses Auracast to allow multiple devices to listen to whatever is playing into it (as long as all headphones are Auracast-compatible, of course). Its full-colour touch-screen duplicates quite a lot of the app’s functions, too, so to make changes you don’t have to fish your phone out of the pocket on the back of the seat in front of you. Yes, it needs charging (via its second USB-C) and, also yes, it’s another thing to disappear down the back of the sofa or something, but for those who fancy its functionality, it’s a very useful little device indeed.

(Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)

JBL Tour One M3 review: Sound quality

Punch, drive and detail in fairly equal measure
Effective and quite nuanced spatial audio effect
Easily spooked by bigger volumes

Some headphones don’t really mind the sort of stuff you listen to, or how you choose to listen to it – they just get on with the job, regardless. The JBL Tour One M3, I think I can safely say, are not those headphones.

As far as music styles are concerned, they’re not especially fussy, but where quality of recording is concerned, they have definite preferences. It’s mostly due to their treble response – the top end as reproduced by the Tour One M3 is absolutely as bright and bitey as is acceptable. So if you provoke it with a recording that shares that same high-end edginess – Nick Lowe’s You Got the Look I Like is a good example – things can get compounded into something very close to hardness.

There’s no shortage of detail revealed at the top of the frequency range, though, and that’s the case throughout. At every point the JBL are an observant and insightful listen, able to identify even the most fleeting episodes in a recording. Midrange resolution is impressive, and at the bottom end they punch with the sort of weight and determination we’ve all come to expect from JBL equipment. There’s a slight bias towards the bottom of the frequency range when EQ settings are left alone, but this can be mitigated a little in the app. What EQ adjustment can’t do, though, is affect tonality that’s nicely naturalistic right until the top end gets involved.

(Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)

Dynamic impetus is considerable, especially where the biggest shifts in volume or intensity are concerned, and the upheavals in Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters are described in full. The smaller, but no less significant, harmonic variations get appropriate weighting, too. Soundstaging, when listening in straight stereo, is organized and reasonably expansive, but there’s a pleasant unity to the stage, an idea of performance, that makes for a confident and convincing presentation.

Switch on spatial audio and the effect is much less showy than some rival designs shoot for, and it’s all to the good as far as I’m concerned. The stage opens up in every direction without losing too much of its definition, and the sensation of space doesn’t feel in any way artificial.

No, the major issue here concerns volume, and the Tour One M3’s inability to cope with it. Turn up the volume and the sound becomes two-dimensional and rather too assertive – every part of a recording seems to rush to the front of the stage, and the top-end tonality (which is problematic all the time) becomes quite abrasive and almost glassy. ‘Composure’ is the word I’m after, and it deserts the JBL the moment you decide to listen at big levels.

The active noise-cancellation, by way of contrast, needs no excuses making for it. Does it cloak you in an eerie blanket of silence like the equivalent Bose headphones can manage? No, it doesn’t. Does it bear comparison to the very best alternatives out there that aren’t by Bose? Most definitely. Without altering their sonic characteristics or introducing a suggestion of counter-signal, the Tour One M3 deal with the vast majority of external distractions and leave you free to get on with listening.

Not too loud, though, obviously.

Sound quality score: 3 / 5

(Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)

JBL Tour One M3 review: Design

Fold flat and inwards, so have quite a small carry-case
Choice of three finishes
Perceived value is not all it might be

Don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the way the JBL Tour One M3 are built and finished. Despite having so much articulation in the frame that they can fold up into a winningly compact carry-case, they give every impression of being carefully constructed and ready to last. But when it comes to perceived value, the embodiment of the word ‘premium’ that comes from the look, the feel and, let’s face it, the smell of a pair of headphones, the Tour One M3 don’t have it in anything like the quantities of their price-comparable rivals.

In terms of the look, that might be down to the fact that my review sample is in an insipid finish called ‘mocha’ – perhaps the appearance is a bit classier in the black or blue alternatives. But the color has nothing to do with the way the Tour One M3 feel and the plastics which make up a lot of the frame are hard and feel inexpensive. All of which is unfortunate, given how expensive these headphones actually are.

(Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)

The practicalities of the design are absolutely fine, though. The contact points are pleather-covered memory foam, and they’re softly pliant. The headband adjusts with a very positive action, and the clamping force it exerts is nicely judged. These 278g headphones are easy to wear and it’s simple to get and remain comfortable inside them. JBL isn’t quoting an IP rating, though, so it’s worth making sure you don’t get too comfortable in inappropriate environments.

On the left earcup there’s a slender ‘volume up/down’ rocker switch. On the right, meanwhile, a ‘power on/off/Bluetooth pairing’ slider is positioned above an ‘action’ button that cycles through ‘noise-cancelling’, ‘ambient aware’ and ‘talk-thru’. The surface of this earcup also has a touch surface that allows control over ‘play/pause’, ‘skip forwards’, ‘skip backwards’ and ‘summon voice assistant’, and this is where telephony functions are accessed, too. It’s possible to unintentionally trigger touch controls when feeling for that ‘action’ button, but broadly speaking these are effective, well-implemented user interfaces.

The USB-C slot can be used both for charging the battery and for data transfer – which means the Tour One M3 are genuinely high-resolution headphones if hard-wired to an appropriate source. And there are eight mics spread over the two earcups taking care of voice-assistant interaction, telephony and noise-cancellation.

(Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)

JBL Tour One M3 review: Value

Variable sound
So-so perceived value
Excellent control options, including the Smart Tx transmitter

Ultimately, the JBL Tour ONE M3 can’t be said to offer cast-iron value for money. They have a lot going for them where comfort is concerned, their noise-cancelling is very good, their control options are all very well realized and, in some ways, they sound very enjoyable and entertaining, too.

But the hard, quite cheap-feeling plastics that make up a lot of the frame, the tendency to lose a little self-control at volume, and the sheer strength of the products they’re competing against all conspire to make the JBL a diverting alternative rather than a nailed-on candidate for your ‘value for money’ shortlist.

(Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)

Should I buy the JBL Tour One M3?

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Section

Notes

Score

Features

Bluetooth 5.3 with LDAC codec compatibility; optional Smart Tx transmitter a potential game-changer

5 / 5

Sound quality

Excellent ANC; dynamic impetus; nuanced spatial audio; but too easily spooked at high volumes

3 / 5

Design

Fold flat into neat carry-case; comfortable; hard plastic don’t lend premium finish

4 / 5

Value

Very good control options; so-so perceived value

3.5 / 5

Buy them if…

Don’t buy them if…

JBL Tour One M3 review: Also consider

How I tested JBL Tour One M3

Connected to iOS and Android music players, wired and wirelessly
Connected using the Smart Tx transmitter to a laptop
Lots of different music, lots of different file types and sizes

I listened at my desk, connecting the Smart Tx transmitter to a laptop, I listened while out and about and I listened on public transport, to lots of music of many different file types and sizes. I spent over a week critically to get the best feel possible for the JBL.

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JBL Tour One M3: two-minute review

JBL Tour One M3 review: Price and release date

JBL Tour One M3 review: Specs

JBL Tour One M3 review: Features

JBL Tour One M3 review: Sound quality

JBL Tour One M3 review: Design

JBL Tour One M3 review: Value

Should I buy the JBL Tour One M3?

Buy them if…

Don’t buy them if…

JBL Tour One M3 review: Also consider

How I tested JBL Tour One M3