TON back online after second DOGS-related outage in 36 hours

The Open Network (TON) has come back online after a second major outage in just 36 hours. 

The official TON Community announced the network’s return to normal functionality around 1:00 am UTC on Aug. 29 in the official TON Telegram group after it went down at 7:17 pm on Aug. 28. 

Source: TON Community

“TON network is fully operational!” wrote the TON Community chat, adding that withdrawals and deposits to TON wallets would be credited in the coming hours and days. 

The most recent outage lasted for just over six hours, with TON once again pinning the outage on a surge in network activity stemming from the launch of a new TON-based memecoin called Dogs (DOGS). 

TON first went down around 11:00 pm UTC on Aug. 27 and stopped producing blocks for six hours, coming back online around 5:30 am UTC on Aug. 28. 

This first outage was blamed on the DOGS memecoin by market commentators and members of the TON Community and was later confirmed by official TON channels after the network went down a second time. 

In total, the TON network has experienced more than 12 hours of downtime in the last 36 hours.

Officially introduced in July 2024 and launched on Aug. 27, DOGS is a new memecoin running on the TON blockchain marketed as the “most Telegram-native memecoin.” 

The memecoin was inspired by Spotty, a mascot drawing its likeness from the pet dog of Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov , who was arrested in France on Aug. 24.

Related: TON Society issues open letter to France urging Pavel Durov’s release

The launch of DOGS has contributed to significant congestion on TON, with the token racking up over $1.7 billion in trading volume within the first 10 hours of going live. 

The official Dogs channel on Telegram has amassed nearly 17 million subscribers in less than two months since the token was first proposed.

TON is the third-party blockchain protocol that the Telegram messaging platform has integrated into its service and has claimed it will remain operational and unhindered by Durov’s arrest.

The price of Toncoin ( TON ) has gained 8% since the network came back online and is currently changing hands for $5.57, according to CoinGecko data. 

Despite rallying on the news that network functionality had been restored, Toncoin dropped 17% in the last week, with the token’s price taking a hammering following Durov’s arrest. 

TON is up 8% on Aug. 28 but remains down 17% on the month. Source: CoinGecko

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