Domain Incite reported that around 8:00 PM UTC (11:00 PM Moscow time) yesterday evening, the t.me domain stopped resolving. Queries now return an NXDOMAIN error – “domain not found,” while Whois/RDAP records indicate that the domain has been placed under serverHold status, a registry-level suspension that effectively removes it from the .me zone.
The .me domain is Montenegro’s country-code top-level domain, managed by the local company doMEn – a joint venture between American giants GoDaddy and Identity Digital, alongside Montenegro’s ME-net. The t.me domain powers Telegram’s shorthand links (t.me/…), which have now gone dark for potentially up to a billion users worldwide.
Neither Telegram, doMEn, nor its partners have publicly commented on the incident, fueling widespread speculation. The most likely – though still unconfirmed – theory points to an order issued Monday by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). OFAC has broad authority to sanction individuals and entities that US authorities deem linked to criminal activity or terrorism.
The latest OFAC sanctions list, primarily targeting Cuba-linked organizations, also included domains and cryptocurrency wallets tied to First VPN Service (1VPNS). According to the agency, the Ukraine-based cybercriminal group sold anonymization services to ransomware operators and other malicious actors. The July 13 order explicitly sanctions three 1VPNS domains – 1vpns.com, 1vpns.net, and 1vpns.org – even though all had already been taken down in May during an international operation led by Europol.
However, the sanctions list also included the URL t.me/FirstVPNService. That has led to speculation that US authorities may have overreached: rather than simply demanding that Telegram remove a specific group or link, they allegedly secured the suspension of the entire t.me domain through American partners involved in managing Montenegro’s .me extension. Since Identity Digital helps maintain the registry for that extension, it is presumed the company would have been unable to disregard a directive from US authorities.
Telegram has since switched to using the longer telegram.me domain in its apps. An official statement is expected shortly. Meanwhile, the incident is likely to reignite discussions in Montenegro about transferring greater control over the national domain zone to local authorities and organizations.
Update: The .me registry has restored the t.me domain. The main .me zone server has reinstated the DNS records, though cached records across various DNS services and providers mean it could take up to 24 hours for full service restoration on users’ devices.
