Ethereum Testnet Gets the Chop! 😱

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Oh, bother. It seems Ethereum’s biggest testnet, Holešky (pronounced something frightfully complicated, no doubt), is about to be… well, *terminated*. Yes, you heard right! Poof! Gone! They’re shunting everything over to a new testnet called Hoodi, because apparently, Holešky developed a bit of a wobble. Technical issues, they call it. I say it sounds like someone forgot to wind it up properly. 🤪

The Foundation (a rather grand name, if you ask me) announced this Monday. Holešky will be given the heave-ho just two weeks after they finish fiddling about with something called the Fusaka upgrade – sometime in September, if they can get their act together.

“After this,” they said in a very official tone, “Holešky will no longer be supported.” Which roughly translates to: “Don’t bother trying to use it, it’ll be as useful as a chocolate teapot.” They’re hoping to launch Fusaka on the *real* Ethereum in November, so Holešky must pack its bags well before then. Honestly, you’d think they’d test these things a bit more thoroughly, wouldn’t you? 🤨

Holešky was launched last year to test what staking and those validator chaps were up to. Apparently, it did a decent job.

The whole thing, you see, is to make Ethereum even *more* brilliant. Decentralization and speed are important, of course, but apparently, making it easier to use is now the big priority. Who knew? They’re touting ‘UX’ – whatever *that* is – as the next big thing. Sounds suspiciously like they’re admitting it’s been horribly clunky all this time. 😉

Hoodi Takes Over

Now, Holešky didn’t exactly go quietly. It had a bit of a meltdown earlier this year, a dreadful leak of inactivity that caused a huge queue of people trying to get out. Eventually, they sorted it, but decided to launch Hoodi in March, a shiny new testnet free of all those troublesome leaks.

Now they want everyone using Holešky to move over to Hoodi, which already supports the Pectra update (another complicated name) and will handle this Fusaka business too. They’re even suggesting Sepolia if you just want to test your silly smart contracts. Honestly, the choices! 🙄

Fusaka is on the Horizon

Fusaka (Fulu-Osaka, if you’re keeping track – honestly, it’s exhausting) is planned for November. It’s supposed to make things faster and easier for those rollup things to access data. Apparently, it’ll help the network run smoother and allow for more speedy transactions. It’s made up of eleven ‘Ethereum Improvement Proposals’. Eleven! Goodness gracious.

Glamsterdam in the Future!

And if that wasn’t enough, they’re already planning Glamsterdam for 2026. This involves, get this, *halving* the block times to a mere 6 seconds! They want to give those clever ‘provers’ more time to work their magic with something called zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine proofs. It all sounds terribly complicated and slightly suspicious. 🧐

All this fuss seems to be having some effect, as companies are suddenly filling their coffers with Ether – and it’s caused the price to go up by more than 200% since April! Perhaps they finally have a potion that works! 🧙

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2025-09-02 04:34