- The Open Network (TON) blockchain, associated with Telegram, has gone down for the second time in 24 hours due to the surge in popularity of the DOGS meme coin minted on TON.
- The DOGS token launched on Monday with an airdrop claim opened to 10 million Telegram users, leading to network congestion and eventually causing TON to stop processing transactions.
- Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov was recently arrested in France, alleged to have failed to moderate criminal activity on the messaging platform, although Telegram is independent from TON.
The Open Network (TON), the Telegram-linked blockchain behind Toncoin (TON), is down for the second time in 24 hours, failing to produce blocks for over three hours. The trouble is being blamed on a meme coin called Dogs (DOGS).
DOGS Token Causes Congestion
DOGS, a new cryptocurrency minted on TON, is popular and now ranks in the top 100 biggest coins and tokens by market cap, according to CoinGecko. Its price currently stands at $0.000145 with nearly $19 billion worth of trading volume over the last day.
The token launched on Monday with an airdrop claim opened to 10 million users of a Telegram-based mini app. But hype around the launch put strain on TON, leading to congestion and finally collapse. The network went down late Tuesday and stopped processing transactions for hours.
A TON spokesperson confirmed that everything was back to normal on Wednesday morning and confirmed that the DOGS token claim was at fault for the network issues. But now, the chain hasn’t processed blocks in more than three hours.
TON Core Working on a Solution
Network representatives initially called out block production issues shortly after 1pm ET. “Block production issues began at 19:19 UTC. The disruption appears to be due to heavy load attributed to DOGS token minting. TON Core is working on a solution,” the networks official account tweeted.
A new TON Status account on Twitter asked network validators to update their nodes ahead of a restart.
Relationship with Telegram
Telegram is independent from TON but the cryptocurrency is popular with the platform’s users – content creators on Telegram can earn the coin and send it to others across the app. Telegram is also using TON now to share ad revenue with channel owners and launched an off-chain currency called Stars that’s connected with TON.
Conclusion
Meme coins and tokens are a big part of the crypto ecosystem but are highly volatile assets that often disappear quickly. DOGS is currently the second-largest meme coin minted on TON based on market cap after Notcoin (NOT). It remains to be seen if TON can fully recover from the strain of the DOGS demand.
