The Open Network (TON), initially developed by brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov, went dark late Tuesday evening, with eagle-eyed users reporting the protocol had stopped processing transactions.
The network, formerly associated with the messaging platform Telegram, has not produced any new blocks for the last four hours, according to blockchain explorer Tonscan.
Posting from its X account, TON confirmed "a disruption in block production to its network," adding the issue is occurring "due to the abnormal load."
"Several validators are unable to clean the database of old transactions, which has led to losing the consensus," it said.
Validators are rushing to restart their nodes and software following a call from the chain's development team, TON Core, to reestablish network consensus.
Binance and Bybit have suspended deposits and withdrawals to and from the network, Decrypt confirmed.
A representative for the network did not immediately return a request for comment.
Tonscan had noted on X earlier on Tuesday that the launch of the $DOGS meme coin was "causing quite a lot of traffic" on the network "with a few central services taking a little break."
Durov, alongside his brother Nikolai, unveiled the layer-1 blockchain in 2018 via a Telegram Whitepaper. That was followed up by the project's initial coin offering—the second largest in history—of its Gram token.
The Securities and Exchange Commission later halted the project, viewing its Gram token offering as unregistered securities.
After Telegram withdrew in 2020, community developers continued the project, launching the current network led by Anatoliy Makosov and Kirill Emelianenko.
Durov was arrested in Paris on Saturday, facing charges of facilitating illegal transactions, refusing to cooperate with law enforcement, and allowing child pornography, drug distribution, organized fraud, money laundering, and illegal cryptographic activities to go unchecked on Telegram.
Despite distancing itself from the project in recent years, Telegram has begun rembracing it, including paying channel owners a cut of ad revenue via Toncoin (TON)—the network's native token.
In August, Telegram introduced a feature enabling content creators to earn crypto via the in-app currency "Stars," which can be converted to TON or used for advertising payments.
The price of TON remained slightly unchanged on Tuesday, though it has been down more than 20% since Durov was arrested.
Telegram's user base exceeded 950 million in July, according to Durov, fueled by a rise in users drawn to crypto-based games offered through integrated "mini-apps" on the platform.
The most popular, Hamster Kombat, has reportedly garnered over 300 million players in recent months, ahead of its upcoming token launch and airdrop.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to include TON's statement.