Tag:

problem

Chainlink Teams With Major Financial Institutions to Fix $58B Corporate Actions Problem

by admin September 29, 2025

Decentralized oracle network Chainlink is working with 24 of the world’s largest financial institutions to overhaul how corporate actions, such as dividends, stock splits, and mergers, are processed across global markets.

Chainlink ran a pilot with SWIFT, DTCC, Euroclear and six other financial institutions. It leveraged a combination of its blockchain-based and artificial intelligence (AI) to ingest and validate real corporate action events in multiple languages.

That led to the production of unified data containers, known as golden records, in near real time, according to a press release shared with CoinDesk.

These records were distributed simultaneously to blockchain networks and legacy systems like the interbank messaging system SWIFT, significantly reducing manual work and the risk of error.

The process used a blend of large language models, including OpenAI’s GPT, Google’s Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude, to extract structured data from unstructured corporate action announcements. These were then published as unified gold records on-chain to create a “single source of truth that all participants can easily access, verify, and build upon.”

Chainlink’s Runtime Environment (CRE) validated model outputs, while its interoperability protocol (CCIP) relayed data to blockchains, including Avalanche and DTCC’s private network.

Data attesters cryptographically attested the outputs and contributed to potentially missing data fields. According to Chainlink, the system achieved a near 100% data consensus across all test events.

The current system for processing corporate actions is costly. Citi’s 2025 Asset Servicing report shows that the average corporate action touches 110,000 interactions and costs $34 million to process. The global financial industry is now spending an estimated $58 billion annually in processing corporate actions.

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September 29, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Borderlands 4 has a throwing knife-shaped problem, and a nerf isn’t going to cut it

by admin September 29, 2025

Rory Norris, Guides Writer

(Image credit: Future)

Last week I was: playing way too much Borderlands 4.

This week I’ve been: continuing to play way too much Borderlands 4 while getting to grips with the endgame.

By now, it’s beating a dead horse saying that Penetrator Augment ‘crit’ throwing knives are overpowered in Borderlands 4. Creative director Graeme Timmins has already agreed as much, noting the infamous knives “will get addressed”, alongside some unintentional interactions and broken builds, very soon.

For those living under a rock, the Penetrator Augment that can drop on throwing knives causes all damage dealt to the target to become guaranteed critical hits for a short duration. With almost any build, especially those specced into bonuses with critical hits or status effects like the bleed Vex build, this short window is more than long enough to burst down any boss in the blink of an eye. Plus, you can also get the Damage Amp Payload effect, which—in the same vein as Penetrator—causes the target to simply take increased damage for a duration. In fact, you can even get these two bonuses together if you’re lucky for guaranteed critical hits and a flat increase in damage from all sources.

Whether the effects are reduced in duration or potency, you can’t change the fact that these throwables offer unmatched, absolute power with no downsides.

That’s not to mention that throwing knives are already a strong option in the ordnance slot, dealing high damage, having multiple charges and a quick cooldown, and even ricocheting on critical hits with a Jakobs manufacturer perk.

Unless you’re running with a dedicated ordnance build, like a Vengeance Amon build, there’s quite literally no reason not to use a throwing knife. Its mere existence completely invalidates entire skills. Why would I need Harlowe’s Glow Up perk to increase gun critical hit chance specifically against irradiated enemies when I could save multiple skill points and just throw a knife? Creator EpicNNG has a video covering all the skills that are invalidated, and it’s a lot:

Just How BROKEN Is The Crit Knife In Borderlands 4? (VERY) – YouTube

Watch On

The thing is, I don’t think there’s a satisfying nerf. Sure, you could reduce the duration of these buffs down to only a handful of seconds, but again, you can already kill bosses in a second or two with the right setup. It would still be a source of guaranteed critical hits, which inherently breaks a number of builds anyway.

If Gearbox plans to simply knock these items down a peg in the hopes of stopping them from being must-have picks, it won’t work either. Whether the effects are reduced in duration or potency, you can’t change the fact that these throwables offer unmatched, absolute power with no downsides, especially if you’re not fussed about the ordnance slot to begin with, which most builds otherwise aren’t.

As much as removing the Penetrator Augment and Damage Amp Payload effects on throwing knives and pretending it never happened would resolve the crit knife conundrum, it’s far from a perfect solution. This leads to yet another issue: like all previous Borderlands games, there would be little incentive to use grenades in standard builds, and they would become obsolete. Ironically, that’s why Borderlands 4 introduced the ordnance system and more interesting throwables like the knives.

While they’ll likely still remain best-in-slot for your typical gun builds, I think the only real solution is to change the Penetrator effect to be either chance-based, active on a certain number of shots, or even just your next shot. No matter which one, critical hits would no longer be guaranteed. It would still provide an incredibly powerful on-demand buff all for just lobbing a knife, but you’d at least be more incentivised to invest a point or two in the skills these ordnance currently overshadow.

Either way, I don’t envy Gearbox. I can only imagine how much the developers must regret having ever introduced such an item, as once you’ve experienced such a power, it’s very hard to take it away.

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September 29, 2025 0 comments

The Honor MagicPad 3 placed on a colorful desk mat.

Product Reviews

Honor MagicPad 3 review: an iPad Air beating tablet with one big problem

by admin September 25, 2025

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Honor MagicPad 3: One-minute review

Image 1 of 2

(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)

The Honor MagicPad 3 is almost the perfect large tablet. With a bright and colorful 13.3 inch 3.2K display, complete with IMAX Enhanced certification, kicking back with a movie or TV show is an absolute joy. Even simply scrolling the home menu or your favorite social media website impresses thanks to a smooth 165Hz refresh rate.

The tablet’s eight speakers perform well, though lack bass overall; especially in comparison to the superior sound systems found on the likes of the cheaper Lenovo Idea Tab Pro. I think you should immediately disable the Honor Spatial Audio option in the settings menu for the best performance though. It’s on by default and gives a solid impression of depth, but makes everything sound artificial, tinny, and a little hollow.

Still, these minor audio quibbles are easy to overlook considering the tablet’s impressively slim and lightweight build. At just 5.79mm thick and coming in at 595g, it’s thinner and lighter than even the iPad Air. Honor has managed to cram in a truly massive 12,450mAh silicon-carbon battery too, delivering incredible battery life. Seriously, this tablet can power through a full day of rigorous use and then some without breaking a sweat.

I was shocked when half a day editing Google Docs files in a café followed by two hours of 4K video viewing on the train, all at max brightness, ended with the battery barely below 80%. On top of that, the tablet holds charge between uses effortlessly – I often left it on standby stashed down the side of my bed after a night binge-watching Amazon Prime Video and picked it up a few days later to discover that it lost no charge at all in that time.

(Image credit: Future)

If you’re the kind of person that likes to leave a tablet around the house to use as needed, you never have to worry about finding it out of electrical juice. Some of this is likely due to the rather aggressive AI Power Management System, which might be worth tweaking if you need certain apps to continually refresh in the background, but it’s hard to complain when the resulting battery performance is this strong.

So what stops the Honor MagicPad 3 from being a best-in-class product? Sure, it’s a shame that the gorgeous screen isn’t an OLED panel and that there’s no fingerprint reader, but above all else it’s down to the patchy update support.

When quizzed, Honor told us that it plans “at least one major Android version update” and just “two years of security patches”, which is a depressingly short timeframe. In my eyes, the lack of Android version updates isn’t a dealbreaker, as you’re only really missing out on software features, but the two years of security patches is. You generally should avoid using devices once that timeframe is up, so the tablet effectively has a looming expiration date out of the box.

It’s a shame, especially when you can easily find tablets under $200 / £150 with more years of security update support. The brand did at least note that it will “constantly evaluate” its plans and “deploy software upgrades accordingly” which hopefully means there’s scope for this to change in the future.

Honor MagicPad 3 review: price and availability

(Image credit: Future)

£599 retail price
Expect frequent discounts
It’s available in the UK, but not the US or Australia

The Honor MagicPad 3 comes in at £599 (around $800) for a model with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, which is a very fair price for what you get, especially in comparison to the $799 / £799 iPad Air 13-inch that starts with a pitiful 128GB of storage. Sadly, there’s no Australian release.

Honor frequently runs promotions that slash that price, however, so expect it to be readily available for at least £100 less. In fact, it has already seen its price fall to £499 in the build up to release. Also be on the lookout for various free gifts, including the excellent Honor MagicPad3 Smart Touch Keyboard, which I tested alongside the tablet for this review, or Honor Magic Pencil 3 stylus. These promotions turn an already good deal into a great one.

The one thing to bear in mind here is that limited update plan. If you’re particularly concerned about getting the latest and greatest version of Android, or worry about using a device that’s no longer receiving security updates, then that otherwise showstopping price tag is a little less tempting.

Honor MagicPad 3 review: specs

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Starting price

£599

Operating system

Android (MagicOS 9.0.1)

Chipset

Snapdragon 8 Gen 3

Memory (RAM)

16GB

Storage

512GB

Display

13.3 inch 3200 x 2136 (3K) LCD

Cameras

13MP, 2MP rear / 9MP front

Battery

12,450mAh

Connectivity

USB-C 3.2, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4

Weight

595g

Dimensions

293.88mm x 201.38mm x 5.79mm

Honor MagicPad 3 review: Design

(Image credit: Future)

iPad Air-beating slimness
Surprisingly lightweight
The back cover might be divisive

The Honor MagicPad 3 puts the 13-inch iPad Air to shame with a design that’s both thinner and lighter. It has a 13.3-inch screen with roughly 0.7cm bezels, flanked by a metallic body where you’ll find four large speaker grilles (that’s two along each short edge), a standard volume rocker and power button, a USB Type-C 3.2 port (with support for 66W fast charging) for topping up the battery or connecting an external display, and a small magnetised area where you can affix the compatible Honor Magic Pencil 3 for charging.

The only thing that I would add is a fingerprint reader, which is unfortunately absent. Luckily the face unlocking is quick and responsive and works well even in low light conditions, so it never feels like you’re really missing out on too much.

The back is relatively plain, aside from a camera module with a flash, a 13MP main sensor and a 2MP macro lens, and a row of small electronic contacts for the keyboard case. According to the Honor website, only one colour is available in the UK: a rather basic Grey.

I tested a White model, however, which is available in some other markets, and has an almost bumpy, textured back. It’s certainly a unique feeling, like having a third-party skin applied out of the box, which makes me think that it’s some kind of vinyl sticker.

(Image credit: Future)

I’m in two minds about this. On one hand, I really appreciate the added grip that this material brings, making it far easier to hold the tablet one handed. It’s impressively resistant to fingerprints and, if it came down to it, would probably offer a fair amount of protection from scratches.

It also looks great from a distance, helping the Honor MagicPad 3 stand out in a sea of plain slabs. On the other hand, the strange feel initially made me think that the back of the tablet was constructed entirely from plastic; this somewhat dampened my excitement out of the box.

I tested the Honor MagicPad 3 with the Honor MagicPad3 Smart Touch Keyboard and was very impressed with its performance. The case attaches to the back of the tablet magnetically, with the top half folding down to create a very distinct looking stand that shows off that snazzy back design. The keys are stable with plenty of travel and are very satisfying to press. It also has a large and responsive touchpad, with pronounced mechanical clicks and minimal flex.

It’s a really excellent keyboard and a massive upgrade compared to the Bluetooth model for the Honor MagicPad 2. My only possible complaint is that it seems to only be offered in the US English layout, which took a little getting used to and seems odd given the lack of availability in that region.

Honor MagicPad 3 review: Display

(Image credit: Future)

Not an OLED, unlike the MagicPad 2
Still bright and vibrant however
Impressive 165Hz refresh rate

The Honor MagicPad 3 has an impressive 3.2K (3200 x 2136) IPS LCD screen. With up to 1,000 nits of brightness it’s perfect for indoor use and can hold its own outside on a sunny day.

A variety of media looks absolutely gorgeous on it with cheerful and vibrant colors and plenty of fine detail. At 13.3 inches, the tablet might as well be a portable TV and I love using it to catch up on everything from Amazon Prime Video shows to Netflix movies and YouTube videos.

Honor offers two interesting display features too: Super Dynamic Display and Vivid Display. Super Dynamic Display uses AI to ‘enhance HD video brightness and contrast’ while Vivid Display aims to ‘enhance video clarity and colors’ with the same technology. With both of these features enabled, videos look a tad brighter and slightly clearer but lose a little color accuracy.

The tablet’s display is IMAX Enhanced certified too, which is good news if you want to consume compatible content on services like Disney+ or Rakuten TV. Outside of video watching, the 165Hz refresh rate also makes browsing apps, system menus and websites feel especially smooth.

You should note that this isn’t an OLED panel though. I don’t think that this is unreasonable given the tablet’s cost, but it is significant when its predecessor, the Honor MagicPad 2, did have an OLED display at a similar price point, which had a significantly brighter screen that offered slightly better colors.

Honor MagicPad 3 review: Cameras

(Image credit: Future)

Decent front camera
Serviceable rear camera
Abysmal macro lens

The Honor MagicPad 3 isn’t going to win any prizes for its camera setup, though that’s the case for almost any tablet.

The 13MP front camera is crisp and clear enough for an impromptu video meeting, but not something that you’re going to want to be taking your Instagram selfies with.

As for the rear, you’re getting a 13MP main shooter that suffers from aggressive post processing that smudges over most of the finer details in almost any shot. It’s fine for scanning documents or taking a quick snap of something right in front of you, but gets dicey if you’re photographing from a distance or with the 2x digital zoom.

There’s also a 2MP macro lens that takes images so blurry that it might as well not be there at all.

Honor MagicPad 3 review: software

Image 1 of 2

(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)

MagicOS might not be your cup of tea…
But it’s easy to use, with lots of features
The desktop mode needs work

The Honor MagicPad 3 runs the brand’s MagicOS 9.0.1 operating system; a version of Android 15. It has minimal bloat, at least compared to alternatives like Xiaomi HyperOS, and offers a surprising number of genuinely useful features.

As a former iPhone 15 Plus user that now daily drives the Porsche Design Honor Magic 7 RAR, I think its interface is incredibly intuitive. Its overall design is obviously more than a little ‘inspired’ by Apple, which could upset the Android purists out there, but it’s smooth, easy to use, and extremely responsive.

I might be a little biased here, as it’s my current favorite mobile operating system, but I find that it delivers the perfect balance between the slick aesthetics of iOS and the freedom and customization of Android. There are loads of options to tweak, from app icon shapes and sizes to home screen and charging animations.

A handful of quirky extras give the operating system plenty of its own personality. One of my favorites is the ability to create a humanoid ‘3D Avatar’ for your live wallpaper. When you unlock the device, you’re greeted with a short moving scene of the character going for a stroll through a park, chilling in a cafe, petting a fluffy cat, or a plethora of other possible situations.

Videos of new scenarios are automatically generated when the device is charging and, while undeniably a little unsettling at first, I’ve grown to love seeing what my little homunculus is up to every time I turn the tablet on.

(Image credit: Future)

Of course, being 2025 the software of the Honor MagicPad 3 also has a suite of AI features including AI-powered widgets that do a surprisingly good job of recommending installed apps based on your usage habits, real-time AI subtitle generation, AI writing tools that help you polish or rephrase your text, and automatic on-device AI deepfake detection for video calls.

This is on top of the Magic Portal – effectively the brand’s take on Google’s Circle to Search feature. As with most Android devices, Gemini assistant is also built in and can be summoned by holding the power button for a few seconds.

The only part of the software that I think needs work is the tablet’s desktop mode equivalent: Floating Window mode. It causes each to run in a little window on your screen that you can drag around like a PC desktop environment, but it’s unfortunately quite unresponsive at times.

Filling the screen with two side-by-side apps is awkward and as far as I can tell there’s no way to have a taskbar on screen at all times. It’s not completely unusable, as I still manage to get work done with some fiddling, but is nowhere near as slick or easy to use as the offerings from market leaders in this field like Samsung and Lenovo.

Honor MagicPad 3 review: performance

(Image credit: Future)

Robust performance thanks to powerful specs
Zero noticeable slowdown in general use
More than enough for gaming

Powered by the 2023 flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, the Honor MagicPad 3 might not have the very latest chip but it’s certainly plenty powerful.

In general use, be that visiting your favorite websites or watching shows, you’re not going to notice any slowdown at all. Even when switching between multiple apps, the 16GB of RAM keeps everything cached and ready to go.

It supports Wi-Fi 7 for speedy downloads if you have a compatible router, plus Bluetooth 5.4. The 512GB of storage space is generous, especially at this price, so you’ll likely have room for all your favorite apps and plenty of spare space for downloaded videos. I keep multiple full series downloaded on the tablet at a time and haven’t come close to filling it up.

With specs like these, the Honor MagicPad 3 is also a surprisingly capable gaming device. Call of Duty Mobile runs flawlessly on the highest settings. More demanding games like Zenless Zone Zero impress too, with a rock solid 60 frames per second on high settings. With everything cranked up to the max, I found the very top middle portion of the tablet tends to get a little hot to the touch, but it thankfully never overheated or slowed down to a noticeable degree in my testing.

That said, if you intend to use the Honor MagicPad 3 for gaming I would highly recommend investing in a compatible Bluetooth controller as the large size of the tablet makes it very awkward to hold in your hands when you’re using touch controls.

Performance score: 4.5 / 5

Honor MagicPad 3 review: battery

(Image credit: Future)

12,450mAh silicon-carbon battery
Incredible battery life, beating all competition
Features the Honor E2 power management chip

Truthfully, it’s difficult to fully test the Honor MagicPad 3’s battery life because it almost never runs out of charge. With a gigantic 12,450mAh silicon-carbon battery this thing is practically everlasting, easily powering through a whole week of on and off use without dipping below the 60% mark. We’re talking well above 20 hours of screen on time, absolutely decimating the battery performance of any other tablet that I have ever used.

It offers comfortably double the battery life of the latest iPad Air and is a dream for taking on long trips or flights. You can even use the tablet as an impromptu power bank in a pinch and still have more than enough left over for the rest of your day’s use. It’s incredible frankly, so serious props to Honor here.

In addition to its large size, the battery features Honor’s proprietary E2 power management chip. There’s also an AI power management system built into the OS. How much of a difference does all this tech actually make? It’s hard to say, but the results are impossible to argue with.

Should you buy the Honor MagicPad 3?

Swipe to scroll horizontallyHonor MagicPad 3 report card

Attributes

Notes

Rating

Value

The Honor MagicPad 3 is incredible value – if you can overlook the patchy update plan.

4/5

Design

Thin, lightweight, and visually attractive. The unusual rear design might prove divisive though, and it lacks a fingerprint reader.

4.5/5

Display

A bright and colorful display that’s perfect for watching movies or TV. It’s 165Hz, though the fact it’s not OLED is a downgrade compared to the previous MagicPad.

4/5

Cameras

Your average tablet camera setup. It gets the job done, but you should just use your phone instead.

2.5/5

Software

MagicOS isn’t for everyone, but it’s easy to use and brimming with quirky charm.

4/5

Performance

Great performance across the board. This tablet is more than powerful enough for general use, and excels at gaming too.

4.5

Battery

Some of the best battery performance of any tablet, period.

5/5

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Also consider

Not keen on what the Honor MagicPad 3 brings to the table? Here are two compelling alternatives to consider:

Swipe to scroll horizontallyRow 0 – Cell 0

Honor Magic Pad 3

Lenovo Idea Tab Pro

iPad Air 13-inch

Price

£599

$349.99 / £379.99

$799 / £799 / AU$1,299

Weight

595g

1.36lbs / 620g

617g

Size

293.88mm x 201.38mm x 5.79mm

189.1mm x 291.8mm x 6.9mm / 7.44″ x 11.49″ x 0.27”

280.6mm x 214.9mm x 6.1mm

Screen size

13.3 inches

12 inches

13 inches

Processor

Snapdragon 8 Gen 3

Mediatek Dimensity 8300

Speakers

8 stereo speakers

Quad JBL-tuned speakers

Stereo speakers

Connectivity

USB-C 3.2, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4

USB-C, MicroSD card, WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, GPS

USB-C

Battery

12,450mAh

10,200mAh

9,705 mAh

How I tested the Honor MagicPad 3

I tested the Honor MagicPad 3 over the course of multiple weeks in the build up to its announcement and release. It’s become my go-to tablet and has accompanied me on a number of trips.

It’s also seen plenty of use at home, where I’ve been using it for a mix of media consumption and gaming. I tested the tablet in its standard 16GB + 512GB configuration, though in a White colorway that is not currently available.

I used it alongside the compatible Honor MagicPad3 Smart Touch Keyboard which was supplied alongside the tablet. The tablet even replaced my usual work laptop on a handful of occasions, where I evaluated the keyboard’s performance and its overall potential as a productivity device.

First reviewed September 2025

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September 25, 2025 0 comments

NFT Gaming

Robot Swarms Could Solve Blockchain’s Oracle Problem, Researchers Say

by admin September 24, 2025

In brief

Researchers built a “Swarm Oracle” of robots that collectively agreed on sensor data under adversarial attacks.
The system uses a reputation token model to penalize faulty robots and reward accurate ones, enabling self-healing over time.
Potential applications include disaster insurance, climate monitoring, and DePIN networks, though scalability remains a challenge.

A swarm of autonomous robots could offer a new way to bring trustworthy real-world data onto blockchains—without relying on centralized sources.

The idea, detailed in a new preprint study titled Swarm Oracle: Trustless Blockchain Agreements through Robot Swarms, builds on earlier peer-reviewed research where researchers demonstrated that mobile robots could reach reliable consensus, even in times of disruption, cyberattack, or in hostile environments. The new study applies that approach to a persistent problem in blockchain design: how to get verified real-world data into smart contracts without introducing new points of trust.

A blockchain oracle is a service that securely supplies external, real-world data to blockchain smart contracts, enabling those contracts to execute based on information that exists outside the blockchain network.

The “oracle problem” refers to the challenge of feeding off-chain data into decentralized systems. Blockchains like Ethereum are built to be trustless—each node independently verifies transactions. But that same design prevents smart contracts from accessing external information, such as weather reports, price feeds, or sensor readings, without third-party input.

Today’s blockchain oracles, like Chainlink, aggregate data from multiple sources to reduce reliance on any one feed. But they can still reintroduce centralized risks, either through opaque aggregation methods or single points of failure.

Swarm Oracle proposes a different model: robot swarms. The system uses a collective of simple, low-cost mobile robots—each equipped with basic sensors and communication hardware—to gather environmental data and reach consensus through a Byzantine fault-tolerant protocol. Once a consensus is reached, the swarm can publish its findings to a blockchain, where the data becomes available to smart contracts.

The concept expands on earlier work by integrating blockchain publishing into the robot swarm’s decision-making process. In a 2023 Nature study, researchers showed how swarms could maintain consensus accuracy even when up to one-third of robots were compromised, misreporting data, abstaining from voting, or physically interfering with other robots.

In the new system, the robots host a permissioned blockchain locally, allowing them to store and verify data without needing continuous internet access. When appropriate, they can upload finalized agreements to public blockchains like Ethereum. The local chain reduces communication overhead while enabling transparency.

The swarm includes a built-in reputation system. Robots that attempt to manipulate the system gradually lose the ability to participate. This provides a mechanism for “self-healing,” with faulty or malicious robots excluded from future consensus rounds.

The researchers tested the Swarm Oracle protocol in simulations and with physical robots called Pi-Pucks—ground-based devices powered by Raspberry Pi boards. While the experiments used identical robots from a single lab, the system is designed to support diverse swarms types.

Use cases for Swarm Oracle include verifying disaster damage for insurance claims, monitoring air or water quality, or supporting decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePINs). By operating independently and across varied terrain, the robots can reach areas that are inaccessible or too costly to monitor.

However, the researchers acknowledge that challenges remain. Malicious agents could attempt to mimic honest robots. While robots can recover from temporary disconnections, long distances may strain communication.

The idea of robots as blockchain participants isn’t new—projects like Helium have explored decentralized hardware oracles for specific tasks such as network connectivity.

The concept is a part of a growing interest in using autonomous agents to make economic decisions, such as routing deliveries or managing grid loads. Robotics developers are also embedding cryptocurrency wallets into autonomous systems to carry out transactions for their users.

Whether Swarm Oracle can move from simulation to real-world deployment remains to be seen, with cost, availability of the robots, and a general mistrust of AI slowing adoption.

Generally Intelligent Newsletter

A weekly AI journey narrated by Gen, a generative AI model.

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September 24, 2025 0 comments

Crypto Trends

The Multibillion-Dollar Security Problem Holding Crypto Back

by admin September 10, 2025

Crypto is superior to traditional finance. Unlike SWIFT, which can take days to process payments, newer blockchain networks achieve finality in mere seconds and have throughput sufficient for real-world mass adoption. U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent projects stablecoins alone will hit $3.7 trillion by 2030. That’s the equivalent of Germany’s GDP.

Despite its technological edge, crypto has a major security problem. We’re on track to lose around 4% of total value locked to hacks in 2025. In H1 alone, the industry lost over $2 billion. When annualized, that points to over $4 billion flowing into hackers’ wallets this year.

If these losses were mirrored in traditional finance, the entire system would collapse. Yet crypto normalizes catastrophic loss rates while wondering why JPMorgan isn’t moving their balance sheet on-chain.

Hacks cost more than you think

The real damage goes far beyond immediate theft. It’s a burden on the whole ecosystem and it gets priced in. Hacked protocols suffer a median 52% token price decline over six months, with the majority still showing price suppression half a year later.

For an industry aspiring to manage the world’s wealth, this is an existential problem. No traditional financial market could survive with annual theft rates approaching 4%. To unlock the institutional flood gates and bring the next trillion on-chain, we must drive hack rates below 1% – now.

The North Koreans are stalking your development team

The moment a crypto project announces funding, North Korean hackers begin social engineering attacks on development teams. They’ve gotten scary good at it. Look at the Radiant Capital hack – $50 million gone because attackers compromised devices through malware that infected transaction signing.

The most painful part of all of this is that we have the tools to stop this, and they keep getting better. AI-driven monitoring systems can spot and resolve critical security issues before code is deployed, catching vulnerabilities that humans miss. Auditing services connect projects with elite Web3 security researchers to deliver tailored security reports. We have the tools, yet projects still ship with single pre-launch audits and pray. Protocols set rewards to identify vulnerabilities at 1% of funds at risk when they should be at 10%. Moreover, they skip monitoring because it seems expensive until they’re explaining to users why $50 million vanished.

How to make crypto ready for primetime

Reducing hack rates below 1% is an engineering challenge we already know how to solve. Protocols must embrace comprehensive security stacks: continuous monitoring, meaningfully priced security rewards to encourage security researchers, formal verification for critical components and AI-powered threat detection. The cost is trivial compared to the potential losses.

Banks and institutions see these hack rates. They run the math. And they conclude – correctly – that crypto isn’t ready for prime time.

DeFi survived every market crash with no systemic bad debt. We solved the technical problems. Security can’t be an afterthought. Either we adopt the security tools we’ve already built, or we watch institutional capital deploy elsewhere while hackers fund their operations with our losses.

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September 10, 2025 0 comments

Esports

Man United have let goalkeeper problem fester. Will Onana exit solve anything?

by admin September 8, 2025

It says everything about Manchester United’s success rate with goalkeepers that André Onana might not claim the distinction of being the club’s worst No. 1 during the Premier League era. But it is undeniable that the team’s dismal record over the last two years has coincided with the 29-year-old’s period in goal.

There are many key ingredients for a successful team. Two of the most important are the ability to score goals and keep them out of your own net. Pretty simple, right? Score more than the other side and stop them scoring while you do it.

United spent over £200 million this summer on Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo and Benjamin Sesko, in an attempt to upgrade on the woeful attacking options that recorded just 44 goals in 38 league games last season. But, despite conceding 54 goals, the goalkeeping problem was allowed to fester.

– Is Man United’s overhauled attack enough for Amorim to succeed?
– 50 most expensive transfers of summer window, ranked by true cost
– Warm-up kits: Rating the good, bad and ugly from across Europe

Every game so far this season has been impacted by a mistake from the man chosen to wear the gloves by head coach Ruben Amorim. Whether it be Altay Bayindir, the error-prone Turkey international who played in United’s three league games, or Onana in the Carabao Cup, the story has been the same; incompetence in goal that has led to a series of negative results.

But as former Ajax and Inter Milan keeper Onana prepares to leave United for a season-long loan deal with Turkish Super Lig team Trabzonspor, the Cameroon international’s exit will only serve to highlight the mess that Amorim has been left to untangle in arguably the most important position in his team.

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One of Pep Guardiola’s priority tasks at Manchester City this summer was to rebuild his team’s goalkeeping department. The club signed the man regarded as England’s next No. 1 — James Trafford, from Burnley — and another viewed by many as the best in the world, Paris Saint-Germain and Italy keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma.

Amorim, similarly concerned by United’s goalkeeping options, wanted the club to seal a deal for Argentina No. 1 Emiliano Martínez, but a low-ball loan offer early in the window failed to persuade Aston Villa to do business. There was only the briefest of enquiries about Donnarumma’s intentions when it became clear that PSG would listen to offers following their €40 million signing of Lille’s Lucas Chevalier.

In the end, despite Martínez being open to a move to Old Trafford in the final hours of the transfer window, United chose to sign Senne Lammens, the 23-year-old Belgium under-21 international from Antwerp in a deal worth £18.2 million. Sources in Belgium have told ESPN that while Lammens is regarded as a potential long-term successor to Real Madrid’s Thibaut Courtois for the national team, he is still raw and, according to one source, “unconvincing when dealing with crosses.”

After two error-strewn seasons as No. 1 at Old Trafford, André Onana is going out on loan. But Manchester United’s goalkeeping problems remain. David Ramos/Getty Images

United, meanwhile, have repeatedly stressed that Lammens is “one for the future” and a youngster who will be given time to adapt to the challenge of playing in the Premier League for a club that places unique pressure on their goalkeepers. Whenever a new keeper arrives at Old Trafford, he is standing on the shoulder of giants such as Peter Schmeichel, Edwin van der Sar and David de Gea — three of the Premier League’s all-time greats — but Onana’s performances over the past two years have placed even greater scrutiny on the position.

Had the club made a late move for Martínez, the 33-year-old FIFA World Cup winner’s presence, reputation and big-game experience may have been the perfect solution in terms of enabling Lammens to acclimatise to English football before being thrown in at the deep end. But as Amorim prepares for Sunday’s clash with Manchester City at the Etihad, he is faced with a hugely difficult decision as to whether to start with the unconvincing Bayindir or hand Lammens his debut in the unforgiving arena of a derby. Guardiola has no such concerns about Trafford or Donnarumma.

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Yet United, rather than Amorim, only have themselves to blame for the situation their coach is having to address. A United source has told ESPN that Bayindir was only signed in September 2023 for a low fee of £4.3 million from Fenerbahce because the club needed somebody to compete with Tom Heaton as the backup keeper after Jack Butland had vacated the role earlier in the summer to join Rangers.

Bayindir’s subsequent performances for United have shown that he is not equipped to be No. 1, while 39-year-old Heaton has been continually overlooked. But if Lammens is deemed to be “one for the future,” Amorim has been left without a goalkeeper he can truly rely upon.

Onana, a £47 million replacement for the departing De Gea in 2023, never suggested himself to be good enough to be the first-choice keeper at a club of United’s stature. His Premier League debut against Wolverhampton Wanderers was marked by a mistake, when he missed a corner and accidentally clattered into Sasa Kalajdzic only for the match officials — who were demoted for the next game — to miss the incident and not award a penalty.

After a stream of errors over two full seasons leading to goals, Onana’s most recent performance was the humiliating Carabao Cup defeat against League Two club Grimsby Town last month. He was at fault for two goals before saving just one of 13 penalties in a 12-11 shootout defeat, so it was simply a case of him finishing his time at the club as he began — with questions being asked of his competence.

Massimo Taibi, Mark Bosnich, Fabien Barthez and Roy Carroll all made too many mistakes to be a successful United keeper — Taibi only lasted four games, despite being recommended to the club by Martin Ferguson, former manager Sir Alex’s brother, who was the club’s senior European scout at the time. But Onana has been erratic and unreliable from the moment he pulled on a United shirt and the only surprise is that it has taken so long for him to be moved on.

His exit is certainly a problem solved for Amorim, but United have not fixed the bigger one because they haven’t signed a keeper who is more likely to be another Schmeichel or Van der Sar rather than another Bosnich or Barthez.

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September 8, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

The games industry has a Soulslike problem, but probably not the one you think

by admin September 7, 2025

Back in 1993, a little-known game called Doom came out. It wasn’t the first game to offer shooting in first-person, but it did popularise the genre. The games that followed became known as Doom-clones (often because they used the same engine), and it wasn’t until the likes of GoldenEye, Half-Life, Halo, and more developed the genre further in the late 90s that the more neutral term first-person shooter was more widely used.

I feel we’re facing a similar situation with Soulslikes. After the huge success FromSoftware found with its Dark Souls games, the term has been used for games imitating the studio’s design. Yet fatigue is now setting in and the term is becoming redundant.

Take gamescom Opening Night Live. A load of (assumed) Soulslikes were announced, from a sequel to Lords of the Fallen, to the Napoleonic Soulslike Valor Mortis. But for most of these games, are they really Soulslikes? Or are they just third-person action-RPGs that have been conflated with FromSoftware’s works as a lazy shorthand to garner attention?

Because what, really, is a Soulslike? Is it a third-person combat game with a stamina gauge? Is it a game where you lose your currency upon death? Is it a game with looping level design? Hidden lore? Or an action game that’s just really hard?

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I’d argue a game needs to have all the above to truly be considered a Soulslike. Yet the problem here is the term constantly invites comparison back to FromSoftware’s very specific work. And it’s hard to compete with the originators of the genre. Heck, even FromSoftware itself has challenged the design philosophy of Dark Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki with subsequent entries, from Bloodborne to Sekiro to Nightreign.

If a studio adheres too closely to the Dark Souls formula, then it’s a Soulslike – but a particularly derivative one. That results in copycat games that don’t move the genre on meaningfully, featuring dark fantasy aesthetics, challenging combat, and little else. Yet there remain a handful of Soulslike games that do push the boundaries, finding their own unique aesthetics or combat rhythm. Lies of P, for instance, plays with its Pinocchio adaptation for its grim visual designs, while more recently Wuchang: Fallen Feathers finds a new rhythm to combat with its multiple systems – not to mention a fun twist on dying.

But what’s most frustrating about the term Soulslike is the way it’s used to describe almost anything as an up-front assumption before really playing. When it was first revealed in 2020, Black Myth Wukong was just assumed to be a Soulslike, until we finally went hands-on to find it had few of the genre’s typical trappings. And every time Phantom Blade Zero is shown, its director “Soulframe” Liang has had to insist once again that it’s not a Soulslike.

Eating sugar? Telling lies!? | Image credit: Neowiz

As for ONL in August, it’s safe to assume Lords of the Fallen 2 will fit the mould, while Valor Mortis is self-described as a first-person Soulslike – perhaps that shift in perspective will be enough to differentiate itself from the pack. But will the likes of Swords of Legends or La Divina Commedia really be Soulslikes? Or are they just third-person action RPGs?

The latest victim of the Soulslike misnomer is Silent Hill f. Where the remake of Silent Hill 2 included over-the-shoulder gun combat, this new game in the series instead focuses on melee combat. Does that make it a Soulslike? No, it doesn’t. And yet the Silent Hill fandom became split on this new seemingly Soulslike combat, to the point the game’s producer has had to step in and call those comparisons “disingenuous”.

“This is one of the things that we see – the term Soulslike – being thrown around on the internet quite a bit,” producer Motoi Okamoto told IGN in an interview. “And I think it’s a label that’s a little bit disingenuous. Modern players will see like, oh there’s a stamina meter, there’s a dodge, and they’re like, ‘Okay, it’s a Soulslike’.

“But to be very honest, a lot of these things we actually pulled from classic Silent Hill titles. Look at Silent Hill 4 – there’s a charge meter for your attacks, kind of like our Focus meter. And even for Silent Hill 3 there’s a stamina meter. You see it later on.”

See – Okamoto gets it!

In Silent Hill f, the ‘f’ stands for ‘f**ked up’ (it doesn’t). | Image credit: Konami

You could make a similar point with the term Metroidvania, of course, or even Roguelikes. Yet Rogue was released so many decades ago that few nowadays remember it (in comparison to Dark Souls, at least), while I’ve increasingly seen the term Search Action used for Metroidvanias, which is a translation of the Japanese equivalent label. Is it time we come up with something new for Soulslike? Or is it enough to call those games action-RPGs?

Another element to this is the prevalence of these games coming from Chinese studios. I’ve written about this extensively, particularly how Black Myth Wukong’s success has paved the way for other studios to follow. The industry has shifted from mobile games to PC and console games and as Liang told me, action-RPGs are ideal to exemplify that shift. “What’s most attractive is obviously the performance of console games compared to mobile games, the fancy graphics and controls, and also the way the game tells the story,” he said. “All of these are the features that will be best presented in an action-RPG.”

What’s more, studios in China (and Korea too) are seeking a global audience for their games outside of domestic players. Likening their games to previous hits – Dark Souls, Wukong – is a surefire shorthand to gain attention, but it’s causing fatigue within the genre and turning Soulslike into a meaningless term.

Still, there’s hope. After announcing Black Myth Zhong Kui as a new game in the series, Game Science CEO Feng Ji took to Weibo (as shared on reddit) to explain why the studio chose to create a new game, stating the studio wanted to create something new and experiment boldly. He even quoted Nintendo’s late-president Satoru Iwata: “There is no future in merely extending what already exists.”

Tiger, tiger, burning bright. | Image credit: Game Science

I’m hopeful, then, we will soon see developers follow suit and break free from the chains of genre convention. And I hope, likewise, we’ll see players stop referring to so many games as Soulslikes. Labelling is human nature and has its uses, but it’s time to appreciate games for their differences without comparing back to a narrow definition of a singular body of work.

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September 7, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Is Hollow Knight Silksong’s ‘cheap’ price a problem for other indie games? Devs and publishers weigh up its impact

by admin September 4, 2025

Here’s a complaint I never thought I’d hear: Hollow Knight Silksong is too cheap.

Team Cherry announced the $19.99/€19.99/¥2300 price alongside Silksong’s 4th September release date (that’s today!) only a couple of weeks ago. No other regional pricing was announced, such as how much it’ll cost in the UK, but I expect we’re looking at £19.99 because that’s how these things usually settle here. That price makes Silksong more expensive than Hollow Knight, which cost around £11-13 across various platforms, but not much more expensive, and it’s nowhere near the £50-70 price associated with triple-A games. So, what’s the problem?

Apparently it’s too little – too cheap. Scores of comments on Bluesky and X, in reaction to Silksong’s date and price announcement, say as much. “Actually underpriced,” said one user on Bluesky. “You guys are nuts for this at $20,” said another. And, “You’re going to spawn a week of discourse with that price announcement, you know that?” said another. Oops, ignore that last one.

Broadly it’s lighthearted – most people are pleased Silksong is €20 and not more. Some people are threatening to buy multiple copies, even, which probably defeats the point. But underneath the giddy excitement there is a more serious discussion happening. Comments from worried indie developers show there is concern about the knock-on effects a price like this could have.

“Silksong honestly should cost 40 bucks and I’m not even joking,” posted developer RJ Lake, who worked as a composer on I Am Your Beast and is directing rhythm adventure Unbeatable. “I won’t go as far as to say it’s bad but it will have effects, and not all of those effects are good.”

Who will play Silksong first – Zoe or you? Watch on YouTube

RJ believes Silksong’s price will distort players’ views about what a €20/$20 indie game can and perhaps should offer. Which other indie teams can afford to take several years to make a game, after all? Similarly, if they did take that long, which teams could afford to ask only $20/€20 upon release? Would it cover all that work? Not everyone has the diamond-encrusted safety net that Hollow Knight provides.

Theoretical concerns turned into real concerns not long after, when an indie developer who had been planning to charge $20 for their game took to X to ask people what they should charge now – now that Silksong was doing the same. “I can’t afford to give it away for free,” they – BastiArtGames, developer of Lone Fungus – said. Hearteningly, most of the replies I read – there are more than 1000 – encouraged BastiArtGames to stick to their original price. But as with the games hurriedly moving their releases away from Silksong, Lone Fungus seemed to be far from the only indie game affected.

Toukana, the developer of successful and wonderful tile-laying puzzle game Dorfromantik, delayed the release of new game Star Birds because of Silksong, moving from 4th September to 10th September. And co-founder Zwi Zausch now tells me the game’s as yet unannounced price has been affected too.

“Yes, Silksong’s price has influenced our decision,” Zausch says. “We’re trying not to compete too directly with Silksong, both in terms of release date and pricing. Of course, these are two very different games with potentially different player bases, but there’s definitely some overlap. That makes things tricky, especially since Star Birds is a joint project between two studios, together employing more people than Team Cherry.”

Team Cherry has four core team members, incidentally, which includes the two co-founders, and it uses some contracted help.

But even companies as robust as Devolver have felt the presence of Silksong. The publisher was one of the first to move the release of its game Baby Steps out of the way (from 8th September to 23rd September). “We felt that the same media and influencers who would be drawn to Baby Steps would inevitably (and understandably) prioritise Silksong, and we felt that would overshadow the glory of Nate falling down the side of a mountain,” Devolver CEO and co-founder Graeme Struthers explains to me.

Tellingly, perhaps, the price of Baby Steps hasn’t been announced yet. Struthers didn’t say this was because of Silksong, but he did suggest Silksong was causing questions to be asked. “My general take is that indie games tend to err on the side of value for the gamer,” he says. “I think the triple-A world has had much more to say about price-points and value, but maybe Team Cherry has brought that conversation over this way.”

Mike Rose, founder of indie publisher No More Robots, says pricing is a fascinating and tricky thing to manage. He’d long been an advocate for higher prices, he tells me, because it leaves room for discounts and down-pricing as a game ages. “But recently,” he adds, “I think the economy of games has been shifting, and people who aren’t actually releasing games don’t see it [or] realise.

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“People have less money now and are buying fewer games,” Rose says, “so you have to set yourself up to hopefully be that one game they buy when they do have money. And if you are a higher price, it’s now actually a bit offputting.” Budget co-op climbing sensation Peak is a great example of things going the other way, he says. “Part of the reason that game did so well was the crazy low price. It’s definitely making us rethink the pricing for our upcoming games.”

One game which shares a lot of similarities with Silksong is Citizen Sleeper 2. It’s not because of the game’s content – Citizen Sleeper 2 is a sci-fi role-playing game – but because both games were built on the extraordinary success of a predecessor, both are made by very small teams (Citizen Sleeper is just Gareth Damian Martin, with contracted art and soundtrack help), and both have very similar prices. In fact, the jump from the original game to the sequel is also almost identical.

Damian Martin tells me there were “extensive” discussions about Citizen Sleeper 2’s price, and it jumped from around £16.50 to £21 to reflect it being a bigger game, to account for inflation, and because of how other games were currently priced. All things I’m sure Team Cherry has taken into account when pricing Silksong 2. But there wasn’t any negativity around Citizen Sleeper 2’s price when it launched earlier this year – not that Damian Martin noticed.

“I don’t think most people notice the price unless it is really out of step with the market,” Damian Martin tells me. “That doesn’t mean people don’t make buying decisions based on price, they obviously do, but I think they do that without judgment or comment. They just decide to buy or not, they don’t complain unless there’s a big disparity.

“No matter how big Silksong is,” they added, “I don’t think it can really affect the going rate for indies. It’s just one data point, you’d need hundreds of indies to offer massive amounts of content for a low price to shift the market. It especially feels like conjecture when we don’t even know how big the game is anyway!”

Unprecedented. So much about Silksong feels unprecedented to me. Has there ever been an indie game this anticipated? Has an indie game ever disrupted release schedules in this way, or upended pricing plans? Here’s a game being treated like the biggest of triple-A blockbusters, except it’s not, and I think that’s where some of the pricing confusion arises from. “That’s why people think the price is low compared to the triple-A games that sell for 80 bucks,” says Bram van Lith, co-founder of Game Drive.nl, a company which helps indie devs price and sell their games. Hype has warped perceptions of what Silksong actually is.

But the question remains: is Silksong too cheap? Perhaps a keener question to ask is how much the people I speak to would charge for it, were it their game. Van Lith’s colleague Alisa Jefimova, a market analyst and expert in pricing, would charge €25, she tells me, to give room for a launch discount. Not that they need the attention of a discount, she adds. “It’s gonna be popular no matter what,” she says.

“They definitely could have gone $25,” No More Robots’ Mike Rose agrees, “but this way they are essentially cementing Silksong as being a gigantic success before it even launches, by making it a steal. So I don’t think Team Cherry is wrong to go $20. If I had been pricing it personally, I would have been on the fence between $20 and $25. But given the state of the industry right now, it’s very possible I would have also fallen on $20.”

“The more interesting question,” Bram van Lith chimes in, “is would the game be more successful asking $20 or $30?” What he means is would Silksong make more money if it sold at a higher price-point, or will the extra quantity it sells at a lower price-point more than make up for it? It’s an interesting question, but it’s not something I think Team Cherry is primarily concerned about.

Again, Team Cherry doesn’t depend solely, wholly and entirely upon Silksong’s success. Far from it. Hollow Knight has sold an astronomical 15 million copies already, and the overwhelming majority since Silksong was announced in 2019, curiously enough. Financially, Team Cherry is fine even without Silksong. Financially, Team Cherry is made.

A far more important consideration for Team Cherry is audience reaction. To wheel out an old cliché, this is the Australian studio’s difficult second album, the game that follows the phenomenal success of Hollow Knight. The intense spotlight beam of expectation and hype can be withering. And the elongated wait for Silksong hasn’t helped. Dipping the price slightly below expectations is a powerful way to prime people towards positivity.

Will it work? As Damian Martin noted: so much remains conjecture until the game itself arrives, which it is now agonisingly close to doing – Silksong unlocks at 3pm UK time today. How big will it be? How historic a gaming moment are we about to witness? And will it be worth the wait? Time will tell. We’ll have to wait and see.

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September 4, 2025 0 comments

GameFi Guides

84,000,000,000,000 SHIB: This Reserve Could Be Problem for Shiba Inu

by admin August 31, 2025

Constant SHIB pressure
Hidden risks

Although Shiba Inu has been one of the most talked-about meme tokens for a long time, investors cannot ignore the structural problems that lie beneath the hype. The enormous 84 trillion SHIB that is currently held in exchange reserves is one of the biggest warning signs. In this instance, reserves are more of an impending hangover on price action, even though they may initially imply liquidity and accessibility.

Constant SHIB pressure

The reason for this is that SHIB is just a sell-off away from severe price pressure, due to the significant concentration of supply sitting on exchanges. Reserves are liquid and available for use at any time, in contrast to coins that are kept in long-term or staking wallets. SHIB is particularly susceptible to market makers, whales and even widespread retail panic because of this. In reality, it establishes a psychological ceiling, since there is a chance that a sizable portion of those reserves will hit the market during each rally attempt.

SHIB/USDT Chart by TradingView

Technically speaking, SHIB has been consolidating with decreasing volume in a descending triangle pattern. If demand isn’t sufficient to balance supply, such arrangements typically resolve downward. SHIB may be suppressed under important moving averages, such as the 200-day SMA, because of these bloated reserves. The price hasn’t broken above resistance levels in weeks, and buyers might be wary given the amount of supply hanging over the market. Investors should exercise caution in this environment.

Hidden risks

Ignoring exchange data in favor of chasing short-term pumps can result in liquidity dumps. Long positions with excessive leverage, or purchases made solely on the basis of hype without taking the structural supply issue into consideration, should be avoided at this time. The risk of a sudden decline is still high unless there is a noticeable decline in exchange balances, which would indicate that tokens are being burned or going into cold storage.

ASUS TUF Gaming A16 (2025) review: a high-performing, low-priced laptop with a noise problem

by admin August 30, 2025

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ASUS TUF Gaming A16 (2025): Two-minute review

The ASUS TUF Gaming A16 (2025) is a gaming laptop that promises top-tier performance at an affordable price. It doesn’t exactly convey its power visually, looking rather muted compared to others in this class. However, it does exude a fair amount of elegance, which belies its budget price tag.

It’s surprisingly thin and free from bulk, although it’s still quite heavy. The lid hinges are pleasingly small, and the bezel around the screen is very minimal – in fact you’ll struggle to find a more slender frame on even the best gaming laptop models.

Build quality is also respectable, although the keyboard doesn’t look the most premium. Thankfully, the keys themselves feel great, offering sufficient dampening, travel, and feedback, which makes them a joy to use when gaming.

And, on that front, the TUF Gaming A16 (2025) acquits itself very well. The RTX 5050 in my unit performed remarkably well, achieving very high frame rates with demanding graphics settings selected, although Cyberpunk 2077 labored considerably on the highest preset, with disruptive stutters, lag, and visual glitches. But dropping the settings down slightly improved the experience greatly, while maintaining plenty of visual fidelity.

(Image credit: Future)

ASUS TUF Gaming A16 (2025) (2TB 64GB RAM) at Amazon for $1,589.99

More bothersome, however, was the noise the TUF Gaming A16 (2025) generated, which is distractingly loud and pretty much rules out playing without headphones. At least the unit stays relatively cool for the most part, with any heat steering clear from any touchable surface.

The large 16-inch, 1920 x 1200 display of the TUF Gaming A16 (2025) is certainly good enough to represent AAA games faithfully, but it’s not the best in class, guilty of looking a little washed out at times. It also lacks the high brightness levels of its rivals, and is a little too reflective.

As mentioned, the keys feel great to use when gaming, but the cramped layout – owing to the inclusion of a number pad – can make typing awkward, at least for someone as ham-fisted as me.

This isn’t too big a gripe, though, and if you’re willing to put up with the incessant noise and can settle for gaming at close-to maximum settings, the TUF Gaming A16 (2025) is a respectable performer that won’t break the bank – at least not to the extent other gaming laptops will.

ASUS TUF Gaming A16 (2025) review: Price & Availability

$1,449.99 / £1,399.99 / AU$2,499
Available now
Well-priced for the spec

The ASUS TUF Gaming A16 (2025) starts from $1,449.99 / £1,399.99 / AU$2,499 and is available now. In the US, we couldn’t find a model equipped with an RTX 5050; the base model here appears to start with a 5060 instead.

This is a decent price for a 16-inch laptop with an RTX 5000 series GPU. There are few compromises, too, with the 1920 x 1200 resolution being the main concession. But the overall design and build quality of the TUF Gaming A16 (2025) aren’t what you’d call cheap.

However, the Acer Nitro 16 AMD is cheaper by a significant amount. This has a less impressive spec, though: the base Nitro 16 AMD gets an RTX 4050 GPU, an AMD Ryzen 5 CPU, and only 512GB of storage. It’s also quite bulky and doesn’t exactly look premium. We were very pleased with its 1080p performance, though, and we also liked its keyboard.

ASUS TUF Gaming A16 (2025) review: Specs

Swipe to scroll horizontallyRow 0 – Cell 0

ASUS TUF Gaming A16 (2025) Base Config

ASUS TUF Gaming A16 (2025) Maximum Config

Price

$1,449.99 / £1,399.99 / AU$2,499

$1,699.99 / £1,699.99

CPU

AMD Ryzen 7 260 Processor 3.8GHz (24MB Cache, up to 5.1 GHz, 8 cores, 16 Threads)

AMD Ryzen 9 270 Processor 4.0GHz (24MB Cache, up to 5.2GHz, 8 cores, 16 Threads)

GPU

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050, 8GB

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070, 8GB

RAM

8GB DDR5

32GB DDR5

Storage

1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD

Display

16-inch, FHD+ 16:10 (1920 x 1200, WUXGA), 165Hz, IPS, Anti-glare display, G-Sync

Ports and Connectivity

1x 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack, 1x HDMI 2.1, 3x USB-A (1x USB 2.0 and 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2), 2x USB-C (1x USB 3.2 Gen2 and 1x USB 4), 1x RJ45, Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3

Battery

90WHrs

Dimensions

13.94 x 10.59 x 0.70 inches (354 x 269 x 17.9mm)

Weight

4.85lbs (2.20kg)

ASUS TUF Gaming A16 (2025) review: Design

(Image credit: Future)

Surprisingly thin
Very thin screen bezel
Good-feeling keyboard

To my personal delight, ASUS hasn’t done much to gamify the appearance of the TUF Gaming A16 (2025). It has a minimal aesthetic and the whole unit looks surprisingly elegant for a gaming machine.

It isn’t saddled with the typical gaming laptop bulk, either. The chassis is pleasingly thin and the rear protrusion is comparatively small. While it’s still quite weighty, again it’s not as heavy as some of its rivals.

The lid hinges look rather smart, and are easy to operate yet provide plenty of stability, while the bezel around the display is very small, allowing almost all of the allotted space to be used.

There are a few missteps in the design, though: the corners of the base are a little too sharp, and the keyboard looks a little cheap. A number pad is also included, which unfortunately makes the whole layout a little more cramped than it otherwise would be. Still, I did appreciate the translucent WASD keys, which distinguishes them from the others.

Underneath the TUF Gaming A16 (2025) are four rubber feet and plastic strips that raise the unit from the surface by a fair amount, which helps to improve airflow.

You’ll find the usual selection of ports on the TUF Gaming A16 (2025), with most of them located on the left side. They’re sensibly ordered, too; I particularly appreciated the headset jack being at the front and the power port at the back.

Along with an ethernet port and an HDMI port, you’ll also find two USB-C ports on the left – one is 3.2 Gen 2 and the other 4, but both support external display connections. On the right are two USB-A ports, which are again logically located, since it makes them amenable to connecting peripherals such as mice.

ASUS TUF Gaming A16 (2025) review: Performance

(Image credit: Future)

Impressive AAA performance
Quite loud
Display not the most vibrant

I was impressed by the overall performance of the TUF Gaming A16 (2025). When I played Cyberpunk 2077 on the Ray Tracing: Low preset – which the game selected by default – I was getting roughly between 175-200fps, depending on the in-game environment.

Turning the preset to Ray Tracing: Ultra naturally resulted in a decrease, but I was still in the respectable region of 115-150fps. Ray Tracing: Overdrive caused a further dip, down to 70-100fps, but with the added bane of significant stuttering and input lag, as well as some strange visual artefacts and pop-in effects. Suffice to say this isn’t a setting I can recommend playing on.

Nonetheless, the above demonstrates a laudable effort on the part of the TUF Gaming A16 (2025). However, the price is paid in noise – a loud one. Under load it’s a veritable cacophony, as the fans whir away with considerable force. Needless to say this can be quite disruptive, requiring one of the best PC gaming headsets with strong noise cancellation to drown it out.

At least the TUF Gaming A16 (2025) stays relatively cool. Any heat generated is confined to reasonable temperatures, and concentrated mainly at the very back of the unit – although this can spread to the underside, so if you are using the TUF Gaming A16 (2025) on your lap, your legs might get a little toasty. Mercifully, though, the heat doesn’t encroach on the keyboard or the sides of the chassis, so there’s no chance of scorching your fingers.

The 1920 x 1200 display on my unit provided sufficient sharpness, even at 16 inches, and proved to be very bit as smooth and responsive as you’d expect from its 165Hz refresh rate. Colors appear vibrant enough, but they can look a little washed out at times. What’s more, the maximum brightness level isn’t that high, and reflections can rear their ugly heads under certain lighting conditions.

(Image credit: Future)

The keys are tactile and well damped, and have more travel and resistance than those on your typical laptop, which makes them easy and satisfying to use when gaming. I also appreciated the prominent nub on the W key, making it easy to locate.

While the keys also feel good to type on, the aforementioned cramped layout can hamper the A16’s productivity credentials. I never fully got used to it, and what’s more the large trackpad does encroach on your hand placement, so you need to take care in not pressing down too hard.

The trackpad is smooth and makes for effortless swipes and gestures, but it can be inconsistent in registering taps, sometimes requiring a harder hit than normal. This might be a moot point for many gamers, though, since they’ll likely be pairing the TUF Gaming A16 (2025) with one of the best gaming mice.

Typical of many Asus products, there are a few annoying pop-ups from Armory Crate, as well as some bizarre notifications from Nvidia about display mode changes, which usually appear when booting up a game; for some unknown reason the system frequently thought two displays were connected.

Thankfully, this didn’t seem to affect performance in any way, and Windows at least makes it easy to change projection settings with the Win+P shortcut. Aside from these niggles, the TUF Gaming A16 (2025) provides a pretty seamless experience overall, as you might expect given the power on tap.

ASUS TUF Gaming A16 (2025) review: Battery Life

(Image credit: Future)

The battery life of the TUF Gaming A16 (2025) is pretty impressive. It managed to last two hours and ten minutes in the PCMark gaming battery test, which is close to the time achieved by the Acer Nitro 16 AMD.

In our movie playback test, where we ran a short film on a continuous loop, it lasted an impressive 12 hours and 18 minutes. What’s more, the TUF Gaming A16 (2025) is also quick to charge, taking just under two hours to fully replenish.

Should I buy the ASUS TUF Gaming A16 (2025)?

Swipe to scroll horizontallyASUS TUF Gaming A16 (2025) Scorecard

Attributes

Notes

Rating

Value

The TUF Gaming A16 (2025) is priced very competitively considering the spec. The relatively low resolution is about the only sacrifice.

4 / 5

Design

It’s surprisingly thin and elegant for a gaming laptop, and it also appears built to a high standard

4 / 5

Performance

The TUF Gaming A16 (2025) delivers high frame rates in AAA titles with demanding settings, although it won’t handle max presets all that well, and the noise is bothersome.

4 / 5

Battery Life

It performed well in our series of battery benchmarks, and it’s fast to charge, too.

4 / 5

Total

The TUF Gaming A16 (2025) seems to have achieved its aim of delivering high performance at a relatively low price point, which makes it a tempting proposition for those on a budget – if they can put up with the noise.

4 / 5

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ASUS TUF Gaming A16 (2025) review: Also Consider

How I tested the ASUS TUF Gaming A16 (2025)

Tested for a few days
Used for gaming and everyday tasks
Plentiful PC gaming hardware experience

I tested the TUF Gaming A16 (2025) for a couple of days, during which time I used it for gaming and everyday tasks such as typing and browsing.

I played various games, including Cyberpunk 2077, which is a demanding test for systems and remains a cutting-edge AAA experience. I also ran our series of benchmark tests, designed to assess the gaming, creative, and productivity credentials of PCs, as well as storage speeds and battery life.

I’ve been PC gaming for over a decade, and during that time I’ve experienced plenty of systems and hardware. I’ve also reviewed a number of laptops, from gaming machines to those designed for productivity and general use.

ASUS TUF Gaming A16 (2025): Price Comparison

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August 30, 2025 0 comments