365Crypto
Goodbye Holešky
Ethereum’s biggest testnet, Holešky, is shutting down soon. After two years of trial runs, the network will end following the upcoming Fusaka fork.
Developers confirmed Holešky will close two weeks after Fusaka finalizes. The fork is planned for late September. Once complete, no clients, testers, or infrastructure teams will support it.
A Busy Testnet’s Resume
Launched in September 2023, Holešky tested validator setups and staking. It handled major rehearsals for Ethereum’s upgrades, from Dencun to Pectra. In short, it got the heavy lifting done.
Enter Hoodi
By early 2025, Holešky ran into inactivity leaks, leaving validators stuck in a long exit line. It recovered, but the Ethereum Foundation decided to start fresh with Hoodi, launched in March. Hoodi already supports Pectra and will carry future upgrades, including Fusaka.
For now, developers recommend Sepolia as the go-to testnet for smart contract and dApp trials.
What’s Next: Fusaka
The Fusaka hard fork — short for Fulu-Osaka — is set for early November. It will spread data workloads across validators, making rollups faster and cheaper. That’s big for scalability. Fusaka bundles 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals.
Glamsterdam on the Horizon
Looking further, Glamsterdam is penciled in for 2026 under EIP-7782. The proposal aims to cut block times to 6 seconds. It separates block validation from execution, giving provers more time to build zero-knowledge proofs.
Meanwhile, ETH’s price has soared over 200% since April, fueled by listed companies adding Ether to their treasuries. Looks like the testnets aren’t the only things getting upgrades.
