Telegram Open Network (TON) has stopped verifying new transactions and has not created any new blocks for over 3 hours.
Tonk Inu, a TON-based community platform, posted on X on August 28 that the TON network is experiencing ongoing outages, blaming the market’s hype around a newly launched memecoin called DOGS.
According to the TON network tracker Tonscan, the last transaction in TON was approved in block 45341899, 3 hours ago, and the network has not produced any new blocks since then.
Source: Tonscan
Cryptocurrency exchange ByBit has announced that it is suspending all deposits and withdrawals for TON until the network returns to normal due to network instability.
In a post on X on August 28, TON Foundation member Justin stated that the outage was caused by a “network overload” due to a large number of DOGS transactions. He also mentioned that TON validators were also overloaded and lost consensus.
“Validators will need to restart at 4:00 UTC to restore consensus,” Justin added.
Source: X
Cointelegraph reached out to TON for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
DOGS Mimecoin was launched on the Telegram Open Network on August 27th.
The token, which has already been listed on major exchanges such as Binance and OKX, recorded a trading volume of $1.7 billion within 10 hours of its launch, and its peak market cap reached $891 million.
According to CoinMarketCap data, the price of Mimecoin hit a high of $0.0018 shortly after launch, before dropping to around $0.0013 at the time of publication.
TON’s latest dog-themed meme coin comes shortly after the TON Society officially rebranded on August 26 to support Telegram creator Pavel Durov, who was recently arrested in France.
TON Society said it is “updating Toncoin’s logo and profile pictures across TON community channels to the Resistance Dog, a global symbol of digital resistance.”
According to this explanation, the dog symbol is a reminder of 2011, when Pavel Durov was ordered to eradicate posts by liberal thinkers and dissidents.
“In response, Pavel refused to silence those on his platform and posted a photo of his dog. Since then, the dog has become a mascot for free speech. It has become a symbol of hope, incredible strength, and courage.”
Source: Ton Society
The TON Society also released an “Open Letter Mini App” on the messaging platform urging French authorities to release Durov from detention and “allow Telegram to protect its users’ freedom of expression and right to privacy.”
At the time of writing, 1.48 million signatures have been collected.
relevant: The arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has worrying implications for cryptocurrencies
Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov was detained on August 24 by French authorities under a search warrant over alleged breaches of the encrypted messaging platform.
The network’s native token, TON, has fallen 24% since the arrests and is currently trading at $5.22, down 1.7% on the day.
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