TON blockchain suffers outages while Telegram's CEO is released on bail

In a curious coincidence, TON, the star blockchain of 2024, experienced two outages in a single day, while its main supporter, Telegram, saw its CEO, Pavel Durov, charged in France and subsequently released on bail.

The blockchain, which has surged in popularity this year, was offline for approximately 10 hours within a single day. It returned online this morning after failing to produce blocks for around four hours.

TON developers claim that the outage once again appears to be caused "by the heavy load attributed to DOGS token minting" and that they are working on a solution expected to be presented in the coming days. DOGS is a meme coin built on the TON blockchain to reward Telegram users via its mini-app on the platform.

TON has become a popular platform for various crypto projects, including the popular tap-to-earn game Hamster Kombat, which is preparing for its token generation event on September 26th. The team claims it will be the largest event of its kind in crypto history. However, this is likely to increase the load on the TON blockchain once again, with the potential for further disruptions.

This week has been particularly challenging for TON, with Pavel Durov, the CEO of its main platform, Telegram, arrested in France on the weekend. Yesterday, Durov was charged with complicity in the spread of sexual images of children, drug trafficking, and other crimes on the messaging app. However, he was released on a €5 million bail and forbidden from leaving France.

These developments have left the market worried about the future of TON. At the time of writing, its native token, toncoin (TON), is down 14% this week, trimming its annual gains to 273%, and trading at $5.59.

As reported, since April, Telegram has gained 50 million new monthly active users, bringing the total to 950 million as of July.