#Ethereum News
Ethereum's largest testnet Holesky will cease operations two weeks after the upcoming Fusaka upgrade, ending nearly two years of testing critical network improvements. The Ethereum Foundation announced the planned shutdown as part of a migration to the newer Hoodi testnet following technical difficulties.
Holesky launched in September 2023 to test staking infrastructure and validator operations at scale. The network enabled thousands of validators to trial major upgrades, including Dencun and Pectra, before mainnet deployment, serving its intended purpose for protocol development.
"After this, Holesky will no longer be supported by client, testing or infrastructure teams," the foundation stated. The shutdown follows extensive inactivity leaks in early 2025 that created large exit queues, making the network impractical for testing full validator lifecycles.
The Hoodi testnet launched in March 2025 to provide a fresh testing environment free from Holesky's accumulated issues. All staking operators and infrastructure will migrate to Hoodi, which already supports the Pectra update and will activate future protocol upgrades, including Fusaka.
Fusaka aims to improve rollup data access by distributing availability workloads more efficiently across network validators. The upgrade could make running nodes easier, enhance network #decentralization , and boost layer-2 scalability through faster, cheaper rollup processing.
Eleven Ethereum Improvement Proposals comprise the #Fusaka upgrade, scheduled for early November mainnet deployment. The changes target how rollups access data, potentially reducing costs and increasing transaction throughput for layer-2 solutions.
The foundation recommends Sepolia as the primary testnet for smart contract and decentralized application testing moving forward. Ephemery continues offering quick-reset validator cycles every 28 days for specific testing scenarios.
Looking ahead, the Glamsterdam upgrade under EIP-7782 targets 2026 implementation with proposals to halve block times to six seconds. The upgrade would separate block validation from execution, giving provers more time to craft zero-knowledge #Ethereum Virtual Machine proofs for improved network efficiency