The Open Network (TON) experienced another outage on Aug. 28, which appears to be caused by an influx of users minting Dogs (DOGS) tokens on the network.
According to a social media post from TON, the issue started around 19:19 UTC. A quick look at the TON block explorer shows that the last block was produced approximately 4 hours ago, as of this writing.
Spokespeople for the network reassured users that all funds were safe and that the TON team was working to restore functionality to the network.
The last transactions on The Open Network. Source: Tonscan
DOGS cause problems on The Open Network
The DOGS memecoin was likewise the culprit behind The Open Network’s Aug. 27, outage, causing several hours of network downtime where no new blocks were produced. Block production halted at workchain block 45,341,899, causing some centralized exchanges to place limits on TON deposit and withdrawal orders.
Related: TON Society issues open letter to France urging Pavel Durov’s release
Block production on the network was restored in the early hours of Aug. 28 after validators were instructed to restart block production at or around 4:00 UTC.
Source: Helius developer Mert
Both network outages were heavily criticized by Helius developer Mert, who characterized the outages as “unacceptable” due to what he described as a lack of official communication between the TON channels and the community, which cannot access funds at this time.
The timing of the outage couldn’t be any worse
Although the minting of memecoins has been identified as the prevailing cause behind the outages, the recent arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov by French authorities sent the price of Toncoin tumbling to lows of approximately $5 on Aug. 26.
Toncoin’s current price action. Source: TradingView
The price of Toncoin later rebounded—soaring to roughly $6.11 on Aug. 28—on misinterpreted news falsely claiming the release of the Telegram founder. Following clarification from media sources and the indictment of Durov by French authorities, TON sank below its 200-day exponential moving average, where it is currently trading at the time of writing.
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