Telegram's t.me domain was temporarily placed on serverHold status at the registry level on Tuesday, causing all t.me links to stop resolving through the global Domain Name System (DNS).
While the messaging platform itself remained operational, users were unable to access public channels, groups, and profiles through the affected short links until Telegram switched to an alternative domain.
The issue first drew attention after multiple domain monitoring accounts reported that t.me had entered serverHold, a registry-level status that prevents a domain from resolving in DNS. Public WHOIS records indicated that the domain's status had changed, leaving t.me links inaccessible worldwide. Subsequent DNS records also showed that the domain was registered through GoDaddy, while its nameservers pointed to Google Cloud DNS.
A serverHold status is applied by a domain registry rather than the domain owner or registrar. When enabled, the registry removes the domain from the DNS zone, preventing it from resolving regardless of the hosting provider or DNS configuration. Services that depend on the affected domain for public access become unreachable even if their backend infrastructure remains fully operational.
The disruption stemmed from action taken by Identity Digital, the registry operator responsible for Montenegro's .me top-level domain (TLD). According to information shared across multiple reports on social media, the registry placed the domain on serverHold due to compliance requirements related to the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Neither Identity Digital nor Telegram has published an official statement explaining the suspension.
Telegram is one of the world's largest messaging platforms, with hundreds of millions of active users relying on its public channels, groups, bots, and direct messaging features. The t.me domain serves as the service's primary URL shortener, allowing users to share links to accounts, channels, stickers, and bots across the internet. As a result, a registry-level suspension immediately affected a large number of shared links, even though Telegram's apps and messaging infrastructure continued to function normally.
Telegram responded by redirecting users to the telegram.me domain within its applications, allowing link generation and navigation to continue through an alternate address. The change ensured that new links remained functional while the t.me domain was unavailable.
The incident sparked widespread speculation online regarding the cause of the suspension. Some social media posts suggested the domain may have expired or linked the action to recent political developments involving Telegram. However, none of those claims have been substantiated, and no official explanation has been issued by Telegram or the .me registry beyond reports indicating that the suspension was tied to OFAC-related compliance requirements.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov did not comment on the domain suspension itself. In a separate post published days earlier, however, Durov criticized proposed European Union measures that would require mandatory scanning of private communications, stating that Telegram would not implement client-side scanning of users' private messages.
At the time of writing, Telegram has not released an official statement addressing the suspension or explaining its response. Users encountering broken t.me links may need to replace them with their telegram.me equivalents until normal DNS resolution for the original domain is restored.
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