Global outage of t.me: Registry-level blocking and threats to the TON ecosystem

Telegram short links in the t.me format have stopped opening in browsers worldwide. At the same time, the Telegram app itself, as well as the sites telegram.me and telegram.org, continue to function normally — the issue has only affected web redirects via short links.

Technical Background: What Exactly Happened?

The cause of the outage is not in Telegram's infrastructure, but at the domain registry level. The t.me domain received the serverHold status in the .me zone registry, which removed it from global DNS resolution and disabled all t.me short links. This status is applied at the registry level, not the registrar level, and according to ICANN documentation, it completely excludes the domain from name resolution regardless of how the service's own infrastructure is configured. In practice, such a block means that any request to the domain now returns an NXDOMAIN error.

Technical records capture the moment of the change. WHOIS data confirms that the domain now carries eight status flags, including serverHold, clientDeleteProhibited, and serverDeleteProhibited, with an update timestamp of 2026-07-13T19:24:55Z. serverHold is an EPP status code that can only be set by the domain registry, in this case the .me registry managed by Identity Digital, and it takes precedence over any settings of the registrar or DNS provider.

Domain registration data:

The long expiration period rules out non-payment of renewal as the cause of the outage. The name servers still point to Google's cloud infrastructure, meaning DNS delegation is not broken — the registry overrode resolution at a higher level.

Versions and Context: Sanctions or Pressure on Durov?

There is no official explanation. Neither Telegram, nor the .me registry, nor Identity Digital have issued a statement. serverHold, unlike clientHold, is reserved for registry-level actions — such as fraud investigations, security issues, legal disputes, or abuse flags.

Two versions have emerged on social media, neither of which is officially confirmed:

• The first links the shutdown to a sanctions context: according to information from several reports, the registry placed the domain in serverHold due to compliance requirements related to the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). It was separately noted that on the same day, July 13, OFAC published a press release adding the service First VPN Service to the sanctions list, and among the addresses listed under it is t.me/FirstVPNService. However, there is no official confirmation of a connection between the OFAC sanctions and the registry's action regarding t.me.
• The second line is related to Durov's personal situation. The suspension coincided with a period of pressure on Durov, who was interrogated by French investigators for the fourth time last week as part of a case related to his arrest in August 2024. However, no evidence linking the suspension to a specific court proceeding or regulatory action has been presented.

The scale of the potential risk extends beyond just Telegram. The .me registry also serves short links for PayPal, WordPress, and the family of apps from Meta, which is recognized as extremist in Russia, including WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram.

Telegram's Reaction and Consequences for TON

The platform has already begun to work around the problem technically. The app has updated its link sharing mechanism: when copying links to chats, channels, or profiles, URLs in the telegram.me format are now generated instead of the standard t.me. It is worth noting that the backup domain telegram.me is in the same .me zone, so it is not necessarily protected from a similar action.

The scale of the outage is significant: t.me is Telegram's primary tool for shortening links, through which addresses for accounts, channels, stickers, and bots are distributed. For the crypto market, this situation has proven particularly sensitive. Since these links are how over a billion Telegram users access the platform's wallet, TON blockchain mini-apps, and collectible usernames, the outage cut off the primary user entry point to the ecosystem of the GRAM token, valued at around $4.3 billion. Specifically, users typically launch Telegram's custodial wallet via t.me/wallet, allowing them to buy, store, and transfer assets such as USDT, Bitcoin, and Gram.

Further developments depend on the registry. Restoration usually requires the registrant or registrar to resolve the underlying claim of the registry before the status is lifted, and judging by industry practice, this process can take from several hours to several days depending on the nature of the problem. At the time of publication, the status has not been lifted, and there are still no official comments.

Expert Opinion: This incident is a stark demonstration of centralized vulnerability even for seemingly decentralized ecosystems like TON. Dependence on a single domain registry, which can be blocked by the decision of one body or due to internal procedures, creates a critical risk for the entire Web3 infrastructure built on Telegram. Investors and users should consider diversifying entry points and, perhaps, pursuing deeper decentralization that goes beyond a simple blockchain.