Telegram's global infrastructure has faced a serious challenge. Short links in the t.me format have stopped opening in browsers worldwide. Meanwhile, the app itself, as well as the backup domains telegram.me and telegram.org, are functioning normally. The issue is exclusively DNS-related and has only affected web redirects.

Telegram founder Pavel Durov himself publicly highlighted the problem, requesting clarification from the .me domain zone registry. Based on his reaction, the company did not receive prior notice of the impending actions.

What happened at the technical level?

The cause of the outage lies not in the messenger's server infrastructure but at the domain registrar level. The domain t.me has been assigned the serverHold status in the .me zone registry. According to ICANN documentation, this EPP code completely removes the domain from the global Domain Name System (DNS), regardless of the registrar's or DNS provider's settings.

In practice, this means any request to t.me returns an NXDOMAIN error — the internet reports that the address does not exist. Consequently, the link stops working in absolutely all browsers, networks, and geographic locations.

WHOIS data confirms: the domain has eight status flags set, including serverHold, clientDeleteProhibited, and serverDeleteProhibited, with an update timestamp of July 13, 2026. It is important to emphasize: the serverHold status is set exclusively by the registry (in this case, Identity Digital, which manages the .me zone) and takes priority over any registrar settings.

Domain registration parameters:

  • Registrar: GoDaddy.com
  • Creation date: May 20, 2010
  • Expiration date: until May 20, 2035
  • Name servers: Google Cloud infrastructure

The long registration period rules out the possibility of non-payment. The name servers still point to Google Cloud — DNS delegation is not disrupted. The registry simply overrode resolution at a higher level.

The scale of the potential risk extends beyond Telegram alone. The .me registry services short links for PayPal, WordPress, and Meta's family of apps (WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram). This situation demonstrates a critical vulnerability in centralized domain infrastructure for the largest digital platforms.

Possible causes and context

No official statements have been made by either Telegram or Identity Digital. Two main versions are circulating on social media, neither of which has been confirmed:

  • Sanctions version: The suspension may have been triggered by demands from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). On the same day, July 13, OFAC published a press release adding the service First VPN Service to the sanctions list, among whose listed addresses is t.me/FirstVPNService. However, there is no direct link between the sanctions and the registry's action against t.me.
  • Legal version: The suspension coincided with another round of pressure on Pavel Durov. Last week, French investigators interrogated him for the fourth time in a case related to his arrest in August 2024. No evidence linking the domain block to a specific legal proceeding has been presented.

Telegram's response and consequences for TON

The platform has already begun technically circumventing the issue. When copying links to chats, channels, and profiles, URLs in the telegram.me format are now generated instead of t.me. However, the backup domain is in the same .me zone, so it is not guaranteed to be protected from similar action.

For the crypto market, this situation has proven particularly sensitive. t.me links are the primary tool through which over a billion users access the platform's crypto wallet, TON blockchain mini-apps, and collectible usernames. The outage effectively cut off the main user entry point to the ecosystem of the GRAM token, valued at approximately $4.3 billion. Specifically, users launch the Telegram custodial wallet via t.me/wallet, allowing them to buy, store, and transfer USDT, Bitcoin, and Gram.

My analysis: This incident is a powerful signal of the fragility of Web2 infrastructure for Web3 projects. TON's dependence on a centralized domain name is an architectural vulnerability. Further developments depend solely on the .me registry. Recovery could take anywhere from a few hours to several days. At the time of publication, the serverHold status has not been lifted, and there are still no official comments.