Update: Telegram restored across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East

Update: Telegram developers fixed the issue in the next two hours. There was no update on the reasons behind the crash. Telegram functions completely restored for all countries that were affected, and with that we are back in business.

The Telegram team gave the okay sign through these two tweets:

The issue was identified and fixed, the server cluster is expected to be fully operational within an hour.

— Telegram Messenger (@telegram) October 13, 2018

The affected users in Africa, Middle East and Europe should be back online now. Some residual effects may linger for a little while (e.g., in supergroups and channels), these issues will go away on their own soon. Thank you for your patience and sorry for the trouble.

— Telegram Messenger (@telegram) October 13, 2018

NOTE: The crypto and blockchain world can breathe again. I know that reading this is like reading about an earthquake, I was smiling the whole time. The digital earthquake, every time one of the apps in the ecosystem is broken. It’s a real thing though, we have rooted our existence to these digital mediums, and apps like Telegram are heavily used in the scene, not only by ICOs, but actual business partner collaborating over the app.

Our favorite application is experiencing issues as this article is being written, and there is quick action taken from the developers! That is very fortunate because how are all of those people going to pump and dump without Telegram?

What a catastrophe!

Jokes aside, the matter is serious with thousands of people reporting issues with the platform across a variety of nations. People in the USA are mildly affected, but the strongest effects can be felt in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, with many reports coming in from Italy, Germany, Belgium in Europe, as well as confirmations from South Africa, Nigeria, Iran, and Uzbekistan.

The situation is under control (probably) as the team behind Telegram issued a statement from their official Twitter account, explaining the heart of the problem. A cluster of servers is offline, and it does affect the above-mentioned countries.

One of our server clusters is down, can affect Middle East and Africa + parts of Europe. Working on bringing everyone back online.

— Telegram Messenger (@telegram) October 13, 2018

Most people in the USA should be able to use the application without a problem, but there have been reports indicating that problems persist there also.

Italian website Optima Magazine reported on the situation over the course of the events and has received information that the issue is connected to the account’s phone numbers. While most Italians have no access, people in the country with foreign numbers associated with their accounts, which may provide some clarity into the way Telegram functions.

DownDetector is also being spammed with users reporting issues with the platform.

For now, there is nothing to worry about, it looks like a localized issue with Telegram, and most likely will be resolved in the next couple of hours. In the meantime, relax and enjoy different types of activities.

Of course, the failure of the network is not something that we can take lightly, as many of the individuals operating in blockchain and cryptocurrency use this application to connect with their friends, collaborators, partners, pump/dump spammers, and random people reaching out to you with various offers that you are not sure are legitimate.

Everything should be back in order as soon as possible, and we will update this article to reflect the state of the situation. Until then, go down in the comments and tell us a funny Telegram story, we know you have one.