The Open Network (TON) recently experienced a major outage, halting transactions for over six hours due to an abnormal surge in activity.

According to on-chain data, the disruption began around 10:11 p.m. UTC on August 27, when TON stopped producing new blocks.

Consensus Breakdown

One of the first to raise the alarm regarding the issue was Tonk Inu, a crypto community based on the network. In a post on X, it informed users that services on TON had been interrupted. The report also hinted at the high traffic volumes caused by the newly launched DOGS meme coin as the reason for the disruption.

Soon after, a TON Foundation member named Justin, while responding to a request by crypto investor Chris Burniske, also attributed the interruption to an overwhelming load triggered by the DOGS token.

Furthermore, TON also released a statement on its official X account acknowledging the outage. It explained that excessive load on the blockchain had caused several validators to fail in clearing their databases of old transactions, leading to a breakdown in consensus.

To resolve the issue, the team behind the network said it had instructed block verifiers to restart at 4.00 a.m. UTC on August 28.

After a six-hour downtime, services were finally restored, with the platform announcing on the morning of August 28 that it was back online and functioning normally.

TON Blockchain Update

DOGS Price Down Following TON Downtime

On its part, DOGS, the alleged cause of the network failure, has simmered down markedly. After its price peaked at $0.001856 following its launch, the coin is now changing hands at around $0.0012, giving it a market cap of $645 million.

Trading activity has also slowed down. Initially, it registered a 24-hour trading volume of more than $1.7 billion, but the latest figures from CoinMarketCap show that it attracted just slightly more than $1 billion on the last day.

It has also not been lost on observers that TON’s latest woes come in the wake of the arrest in France of Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov. According to reports, Durov’s detention is in connection to alleged insufficient moderation on the messaging platform, particularly regarding issues surrounding drug trafficking, child sexual content, and fraud.