On July 13, the .me domain registry placed Telegram's short URL domain t.me into serverHold status, removing it from the global DNS and rendering all web links starting with t.me instantly inaccessible. However, links within the Telegram app and the telegram.me domain remained unaffected, indicating the issue is specific to the t.me registration rather than Telegram's overall infrastructure. Founder Pavel Durov appeared to learn of the problem in real-time on X, publicly tagging the registry for help, while neither Telegram nor the registry has issued an official statement.
t.me Links Suddenly Break; App Unaffected
Telegram relies on the t.me domain for sharing channel and group links, but on July 13 those links abruptly stopped working. The .me registry flagged t.me as serverHold, effectively deleting it from the DNS system. By contrast, the Telegram app continued to function normally, and the older telegram.me domain remained accessible. Since both t.me and telegram.me use the same registrar, the selective outage points to a problem limited to the t.me registration itself rather than a broader crackdown on Telegram.
Durov Learns on X; No Official Explanation Yet
Perhaps the most awkward aspect is that Telegram apparently received no prior warning. Pavel Durov took to X to publicly tag the registry, writing: "Hey, t.me links aren't working, can you help take a look?" His tone suggested he discovered the issue at the same time as everyone else. As of now, neither Telegram, the .me registry, nor the technical operator Identity Digital has provided an official explanation. Speculation ranges from legal disputes and regulatory compliance to technical errors, with some in the crypto community suggesting involvement of the U.S. Treasury's OFAC sanctions compliance—though none of these theories have been confirmed.
Crypto Community Worries About TON On-Ramp
For the crypto industry, the outage is more than an inconvenience. t.me has long served as the standard entry point for countless crypto projects to share channel invites, groups, and customer support, and it is a key on-ramp for Telegram's own TON ecosystem. The broken links temporarily shut one of the doors to TON, raising concerns about dependency on centralized domain registrations. While the app-based links remain intact, the incident highlights the fragility of relying on a single short domain for critical infrastructure.