Developers within the Ethereum network are set to retire the Holesky testnet, which will be succeeded by a new testing environment known as Hoodi.
On March 19, an announcement revealed that the Ethereum Foundation will phase out the Holesky testnet following significant issues triggered by the much-anticipated Pectra upgrade implemented last month.
The decision to dismantle Holesky arose from technical complications experienced in February when the Pectra upgrade was tested. This upgrade disrupted the Holesky network, leaving its validator set inoperable for weeks.
Engineers from the foundation managed to apply a fix in March, but the Holesky network remained congested. A similar situation was noticed on Sepolia, Ethereum’s second-largest testing environment, though developers succeeded in finding a workaround. These testnets serve as vital platforms for developers to simulate and troubleshoot network upgrades like Pectra prior to their release on the Ethereum mainnet.
Although the Holesky network has finalized, it will take approximately one year to completely remove the exited validators from its set. While stakers can experiment with deposits, consolidations, and other Pectra functionalities, the lengthy exit queue hinders Holesky’s capacity to effectively test the entire validator lifecycle in a timely manner.
Looking ahead, a new testnet called Hoodi is set to take the place of Holesky, as indicated by DevOps engineer Paritosh Jayanthi and core coordinator Tim Beiko. The team plans to conduct a test of Pectra on Hoodi on March 26, serving as the final rehearsal before its anticipated mainnet launch. Should everything proceed smoothly, the foundation could introduce Pectra to the Ethereum main chain by April 25.