Telegram’s t.me shortlink domain went offline for roughly a day after Montenegro-based registrar DomainME placed it under a “serverhold.” The outage stopped users from using the shortened links that let people join public Telegram groups with one click. Founder Pavel Durov publicly noted on X that the links had stopped working.
DomainME later confirmed the domain was held for OFAC compliance and is now restored. The timing matched new U.S. Treasury sanctions on First VPN, a service authorities said cybercriminals used for ransomware. The sanctions listing itself contained a t.me link to the VPN’s public Telegram group, prompting the registrar to suspend the entire domain rather than only the specific address.
U.S. companies face heavy fines for failing to follow sanctions rules, which explains the broad action. Telegram’s other domain, telegram.me, was unaffected and stayed online. DomainME’s CEO said an official statement would follow; Telegram did not comment.