Important takeouts:
- Halcy, the biggest testnet of Ethereum, will be discontinued Two weeks after the Fusaka upgrade was completed in September 2025.
- Hoodie will be completely replaced by Halsey It is designed to avoid the technical issues that plagued its predecessor as a new validator-centric testnet.
- Ethereum currently runs three specialized testnets: Sepolia (for Dapps), Hoodi (for staking), and Ephemery (for short validator cycles).
Ethereum is Officially the most ambitious testnet is sunkHalsey marks a pivotal transition in its test infrastructure. After enabling nearly two years of critical upgrades and scaling experiments, Holešky is phased out in favor of a more modular and professional network.
Halushki was a giant, but that was over.
The end of an important era
Released in September 2023, Halsea is Ethereum’s largest public testnet, with the aim of simulating real-world staking conditions at scale. I hosted it at that peak 1.6 million validatorsWarn previous testnets like Goerli and Ropsten.
Holešky was particularly involved in testing the upgrades, including:
- Dencun:To reduce transaction costs via EIP-4844 (Proto-Danksharding)
- Pektra: Introduced performance and partial departure mechanism for optimized validators
But the same scale that made Halsey so impressive has changed.
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Why did Halsey have to retire?
Inactive leaks and validator exit bottlenecks
In early 2025, Halsey began to show signs of stress. After activating the Pectra upgrade, Inactive leak Press Network. Thousands of validators went offline and created Large exit queue It took several weeks to process.
Here is:
- Slow Validator Chanit is not possible to perform a test of the complete validator lifecycle within a practical timeline.
- Infrastructure fatiguedevelopers had a hard time simulating dynamic network behavior.
Even after technical recovery, the network has transformed into a working bottleneck. We are no longer able to provide the testing agility needed to support the fast-paced Ethereum roadmap.
Enter Hoodi: Next Generation Validator TestNet
Born from Halsey’s shortcomings
Ethereum announced its Hoodie in March 2025 in an effort to fix the Halsea defects. Features:
- Fresh Validator Setsolves the problem with legacy exit queues
- Built-in support for Pectra and future upgradesIncludes Fusaka Fork
- More Resilient Architecture for Long-Term Staking Simulations
Hoodi is created with a fusion model from a more maintainable infrastructure and less historical bug-free merge.
Chain stacks and infrastructure, as well as other large infrastructure providers, have already driven their tools to use hoodies.
Ethereum’s new testnet landscape
Ethereum is currently running a small set of three testnets optimized to meet certain features.
| Test Net | the purpose |
| Sepolia | Smart contracts and DAPP development |
| Hoodie | Validators and Staking Infrastructure Testing |
| Ephemery | Lightweight, Reset-28 Day Validator Lifecycle Test |
This segmentation improves reliability and ensures that the testnet is tailored to the needs of the developer, rather than trying to provide all the purposes in a single network.
Fusaka Fork sets a final deadline
Fusaka UpgradeEthereum’s next major hard fork will be activated in Holešky Mid- to late September 2025. Two weeks after completion, all remaining validator nodes in Holešky will be shut down.
After this, “Holešky will no longer be supported by clients, tests, or infrastructure teams,” the Ethereum Foundation said in a blog post.
Fusaka introduces several enhancements including:
- Improved availability of rollup data
- Distributed Validator Load
- Low transaction latency and improve scalability
It consists of 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) and is the catalyst for the next stage of Ethereum growth.
What’s next for Ethereum Testnets?
Whole Sea Closure is not only a closure, but also represents the overall Ethereum strategy of evolution. Over 2025, it will become clear:
- Streamlined Modular Test Net
- Faster iterative cycles
- Cleaner Infrastructure
We look forward to seeing Ethereum targeting Glamsterdam upgrades in 2026.
- Block time from 12 seconds to 6 seconds is reduced by half
- Block verification individually from execution
- Improve support ZK-EVM system
These moves are specifically aimed at improving user experience and scalability for rollups (a critical component of Ethereum’s Layer 2 ecosystem).
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Ethereum meeting in infrastructure shakeup
At the time of writing, ETH traded for around $4,395 and continues its recent streak, driven by ETF enthusiasm and growth in facility purchases.
- Multiple public companies have been added Their eth to the Ministry of Finance
- Crypto Community is watching Ethereum infrastructure shakeup Maturity signalnot risk
When the Holešky chapter is closed, Ethereum Precision Engineeringreplaces “large and bulky” Lean and exclusive.
