Ethereum activates final testnet 'Hoodi' for Fusaka… full mainnet deployment in December

Ethereum has activated the next-generation upgrade 'Fusaka', aimed at improving scalability and security, on the final testnet Hoodi and is preparing for mainnet deployment. Developers have tentatively announced the mainnet upgrade for December 3.

According to The Block on the 28th (local time), Hoodi is the third and final testnet following Holesky and Sepolia, and this hard fork is the final inspection stage before Fusaka's mainnet deployment. The Ethereum Foundation said it will implement the mainnet upgrade only after at least 30 days have passed since the completion of the Hoodi test.

Fusaka is a backend-focused technical upgrade to improve Ethereum's efficiency and scalability, including raising the block gas limit, data expansion ('blob', increased capacity), and strengthening node security features. In particular, it includes EIP-7594, which introduces the 'Peer Data Availability Sampling (PeerDAS)' technology. This is a method in which validators sample and verify only parts of the data instead of all of it, increasing data availability for layer-2 networks and enhancing verification efficiency.

The Ethereum Foundation has been conducting a four-week security audit program since last month and will pay up to $2 million in rewards to researchers who discover security vulnerabilities. This is part of pre-deployment checks to ensure stability before mainnet deployment.

The Fusaka upgrade is a major network overhaul about six months after Ethereum implemented the 'Pectra' upgrade in May. Developers have already begun discussions on the next stage, the 'Glamsterdam' upgrade, which aims to improve transaction parallel processing and block production speed.

If the Fusaka upgrade is completed successfully, Ethereum is expected to enter a more mature phase in terms of network scalability and layer-2 integration stability.