Ethereum Foundation: Holešky Testnet to Cease Operations Soon

According to ChainCatcher, the Ethereum Foundation has officially announced that the Holešky testnet has reached its planned end of life and will soon cease operations. Two weeks after the Fusaka upgrade was finalized on Holešky, the vast majority of remaining validator nodes will be shut down. After this, client teams, testing teams, and infrastructure teams will no longer provide support for Holešky.

The official statement noted that Holešky was launched in 2023 as Ethereum's largest public testnet, specifically designed for large-scale staking infrastructure and validator operation testing. The network has fulfilled its mission, assisting thousands of validators in protocol upgrade testing, including the Dencun network upgrade and the recent Pectra upgrade.

However, after the activation of the Pectra testnet in early 2025, Holešky experienced a large-scale inactivity leak, resulting in a surge in the validator exit queue. Although the network eventually recovered and finalized, the lengthy validator exit process made it impractical to complete a full validator lifecycle test within a reasonable timeframe. This directly led to the creation and launch of the brand-new Hoodi testnet in March 2025, which provides a new testing environment free from these limitations.