A Registry Kill Switch
The domain had been suspended and removed from global DNS. Domain records show t.me was placed on server hold, a registry-level status that stops a domain from being published in DNS, meaning every lookup now returns NXDOMAIN (the internet’s way of saying the address does not exist).
Industry publication Domain Name Wire observed that the domain had not expired and registration records show it paid up through May 2035, ruling out a simple lapse, adding:
[A server hold] is put in place by the registry, which suggests the registry has suspended the domain name. There is no word yet on what caused the suspension.
The .me extension is Montenegro’s country-code domain, marketed globally since 2008. It is operated by doMEn, a Montenegro-based venture whose partners include backend registry provider Identity Digital and Godaddy. The registry’s early partnership with Telegram made t.me the shortlink domain of record for the messenger, powering the t.me/username and t.me/channel links shared billions of times across the web.
Durov Caught off Guard
Telegram’s founder and chief executive, Pavel Durov, responded publicly on X, stating:
Hey @domainME, t.me links stopped working. Can you look into it?
He also noted that the company received no advance notice of the registry action, an unusual way for a platform with roughly a billion monthly active users to discover its main link infrastructure had been switched off.
The suspension also lands during a period of sustained legal pressure on Durov, who was reportedly questioned by French investigators for a fourth time last week in connection with his August 2024 arrest. No link between that probe and the domain action has been established, and possible explanations range from a legal or regulatory order to a policy dispute or plain administrative error.
What Crypto Needs to Watch out For
Telegram is crypto’s de facto town square, given a boatload of projects, exchanges, traders and researchers coordinate through channels and groups that are shared almost exclusively as t.me links, and countless trading bots onboard users the same way. The app itself keeps functioning, but invite links, channel URLs embedded across websites and pinned social posts now fail globally.
The platform’s financial ambitions raise the stakes further as Telegram’s crypto wallet is adding tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs (exchange-traded funds) through Kraken and Backed, part of a broader push to turn the messenger into a financial hub.
Over the next 24 hours, it will be interesting to watch whether a statement from doMEn, Identity Digital, or Telegram itself surfaces, explaining the hold and a timeline for restoration.
