DeepSeek: Registration Restricted — Service Under Attack

Beginning January 27, 2025 — the same week DeepSeek R1 caused a global stock market shock — DeepSeek posted this message as they faced both a massive organic traffic surge and a coordinated cyberattack. New account registrations were blocked for multiple days. China-registered phone numbers were the only accepted verification method during this period. This error has recurred periodically in 2025–2026 during high-traffic events.