Ethereum to shut down testnet Holesky within 2 weeks

The Ethereum (ETH) Foundation said on the 2nd that it plans to retire its largest testnet, "Holesky," soon and transition to a new network, "Hoodi."

According to Cointelegraph, Holesky will be officially shut down within two weeks after the Fusaka upgrade scheduled for the second half of September. The Foundation said, "After the shutdown, Holesky will no longer be supported by client, test, and infrastructure teams."

Holesky launched in September 2023 and has been used to validate core functions such as staking infrastructure and validator operations. It was also used to test the Dencun and the recent Pectra upgrades. However, technical issues such as a large-scale inactivity leak occurred earlier this year, and the Foundation launched the new testnet Hoodi in March.

Hoodi already supports the Pectra update and will incorporate future upgrades including Fusaka.

Meanwhile, the Fusaka hard fork consists of 11 improvement proposals (EIPs) and aims to be applied to the mainnet in November. The core goal is to distribute data availability burdens to validators to improve rollup efficiency. Then in 2026, the "Glamsterdam" upgrade, which halves block time, is also planned.