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A domain used by the messaging app Telegram mysteriously dropped offline on Monday, with the app\u2019s founder, Pavel Durov, saying in an X post<\/a> that The outage prevented users from accessing the The domain is now back online, according to the Montenegro-based domain registrar DomainME, which manages the \u201cThe In a post on X responding to Durov, DomainME said<\/a> that Telegram\u2019s Telegram\u2019s As noted by technologist Jonah Aragon<\/a>, the domain was suspended on the same day that the U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions<\/a> on a VPN provider called First VPN, which authorities said was used by cybercriminals to launch ransomware attacks. U.S. authorities shut down the site earlier this year<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Treasury\u2019s sanctions listing<\/a> for First VPN, published Monday, contains a link to the full web address of the VPN provider\u2019s public group on Telegram using the shortened It\u2019s likely that the domain registrar suspended Telegram\u2019s entire U.S. companies, including domain registrars, that do not adhere to U.S. sanctions laws can face heavy fines.<\/p>\n Another domain used by Telegram, A spokesperson for Telegram did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\nt.me<\/code> links had \u201cstopped working.\u201d<\/p>\nt.me<\/code> domain shortlink, used by the messaging app to allow users to share one-click links for joining public groups.<\/p>\n .me<\/code> top-level domain.<\/p>\nt.me<\/code> domain is back online. We will be issuing an official statement shortly,\u201d said Predrag Le\u0161i\u0107, the chief executive of DomainME, in an email to TechCrunch.<\/p>\nt.me<\/code> domain was \u201con hold due to the OFAC compliance, but it is back online now.\u201d OFAC refers to the U.S. Treasury\u2019s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which imposes economic sanctions on overseas companies and individuals who pose economic national security risk to the United States.<\/p>\nt.me<\/code> domain went offline after a \u201cserverhold\u201d block was put on the domain. A \u201cserverhold\u201d typically means<\/a> that the domain registrar locked the domain for some reason, which tends to knock the domain offline.\u00a0The \u201cserverhold\u201d was lifted early on Tuesday, per the site\u2019s public internet records.<\/p>\nt.me<\/code> domain.<\/p>\nt.me<\/code> domain to comply with the new sanctions, rather than restricting the specific web address that links to the Telegram group in the Treasury\u2019s sanctions listing.<\/p>\ntelegram.me<\/code>, was not listed in the sanctions file and was operational at the time of writing.<\/p>\n