As previously announced, the Holešky testnet has reached its planned end-of-life date and will be sunset shortly. The vast majority of remaining validator nodes will be shut down 2 weeks after the Fusaka upgrade has finalized on Holešky. After this, Holešky will no longer be supported by client, testing or infrastructure teams.
Following the launch of the Hoodi testnet in March 2025, infrastructure providers and staking operators have had the opportunity to migrate their testing operations.
Background
Holešky was launched in 2023 as Ethereum's largest public testnet, designed specifically for testing staking infrastructure and validator operations at scale. The network served its purpose, enabling thousands of validators to test protocol upgrades, including the Dencun network upgrade and most recently, Pectra.
However, following the Pectra testnet activation in early 2025, Holešky experienced extensive inactivity leaks that resulted in a large exit queue. While the network recovered and finalized, the lengthy validator exit process made it impractical for testing the full validator lifecycle within reasonable timeframes. This led to the creation and launch of Hoodi in March 2025, providing a fresh testing environment without these constraints.
Migration Path
Staking operators and infrastructure providers should migrate to Hoodi, which was launched specifically to address Holešky's limitations. Hoodi provides a fresh validator set, supports all Pectra features and will activate future protocol upgrades, including the upcoming Fusaka fork.
Application and tooling developers who were using Holešky should use Sepolia instead, which remains the recommended testnet for smart contract and dapp testing.
Current Testnet Landscape
Following Holešky's sunset, Ethereum's testnet ecosystem will consist of:
- Sepolia: Application and tooling development
- Hoodi: Validator and staking provider testing
- Ephemery: Lightweight validator lifecycle testing with resets every 28 days
Looking Forward
Holešky provided valuable insights into large-scale validator operations and helped stress-test critical protocol upgrades. These learnings have directly informed both Hoodi's design and broader protocol testing practices.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to running, maintaining, and testing on Holešky over the past years!
