An event has occurred in the world of Telegram and its associated blockchain infrastructure TON that has put many users and investors on alert. Short links in the t.me format, used by billions of people to access channels, chats, bots, and, critically, to reach crypto wallets and mini-apps, have stopped opening in browsers worldwide. The Telegram app itself and the backup domain telegram.me continue to function normally, but web transitions via short links have been completely paralyzed.
Technical Background: Blocking at the Registry Level
The problem lies not within Telegram's own infrastructure, but at the level of the global domain name registry. The domain t.me has received the serverHold status in the .me zone registry, which is managed by the company Identity Digital. This status is one of the strictest: it completely excludes the domain from the DNS resolution system, and any request to it returns an NXDOMAIN error. Simply put, the internet "forgets" about the existence of this address, regardless of how the messenger's own servers are configured.
WHOIS data confirms that the domain now has eight status flags set, including serverHold, clientDeleteProhibited, and serverDeleteProhibited. Notably, the date of the last record update — July 13, 2026 — coincides with the moment the links were disabled. Meanwhile, the domain is registered until 2035, ruling out the possibility of a payment lapse. The name servers still point to Google's cloud infrastructure, meaning DNS delegation is not broken — the registry simply overrode resolution at a higher level.
Versions and Context: Sanctions or Pressure on Durov?
Currently, there are no official statements from Telegram, the .me registry, or Identity Digital. However, two main versions are circulating on social media.
The first links the block to a sanctions context. On the same day, the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) published a press release adding the service First VPN Service to the sanctions list. Among the addresses listed under it is t.me/FirstVPNService. Although there is no direct connection between this action and the blocking of the entire t.me domain, the coincidence looks more than suspicious.
The second version revolves around Pavel Durov's personal situation. The suspension coincided with another round of interrogations of the Telegram founder in France as part of a case related to his arrest in August 2024. However, no evidence linking the block to a specific court proceeding or regulatory action has been presented so far.
Consequences for the TON Ecosystem: A Blow to Onboarding
Telegram has already begun to technically circumvent the problem: when copying links to chats, channels, and profiles, URLs in the telegram.me format are now generated. However, the backup domain is in the same .me zone as t.me, meaning it is not protected from a similar action by the registry.
The scale of the outage has been particularly painful for the crypto community. t.me links are the primary tool for entering the TON ecosystem. Through t.me/wallet, users launch a custodial wallet, buy, store, and transfer assets, including USDT, Bitcoin, and the native token Gram, which has a market capitalization of around $4.3 billion. Blocking this entry point is a direct threat to the entire user base and the network's liquidity.
Expert comment: In my view, this situation is a wake-up call for the entire TON ecosystem. The dependence of critical financial infrastructure on a single domain name controlled by a third party is a fundamental vulnerability. Restoring t.me's functionality could take anywhere from a few hours to several days, depending on the nature of the registry's claims. But the main lesson here is the need to decentralize entry points. Until official comments are made, the market will remain in a state of uncertainty, which could put pressure on the value of ecosystem tokens.