Ethereum Shuts Holesky Testnet After Two Years, Network Growth Signals Rising Demand

Ethereum has recently announced that it will shut down the Holesky testnet two years after it was first released.

Written by: Sophia Cruz • Tuesday, September 2, 2025 • 1 min read

• Last updated: Tuesday, September 2, 2025

Quick overview

Ethereum will shut down the Holesky testnet two years after its launch due to its declining utility.
The number of active ETH addresses has reached its highest level since 2021, indicating increased investor interest.
Hoodi has been introduced to replace Holesky, addressing its previous issues and supporting upcoming enhancements.
Sepolia remains the primary ecosystem for developers focused on dapps and smart contracts.

Ethereum has recently announced that it will shut down the Holesky testnet two years after it was first released. The number of active ETH addresses is now at its highest level since 2021.

Ethereum recently announced in a blog post that it would be shutting down Holesky, its largest public testnet. This testnet was set created in 2023 to help with validator and staking activities on a bigger scale.

It was very important to test important improvements like Dencun and the Pectra upgrade, which went live in May.

However, it’s no longer useful. According to the developers, Holesky will be totally turned off two weeks after the Fusaka upgrade is finished in November. The network will no longer be maintained by the client, testing, and infrastructure teams when support concludes.

The decision was made after problems with technology started in early 2025. After Pectra was released, Holesky had a lot of problems with validators going offline. Because of this, there were long lines to leave, and engineers thought the testnet was less useful.

Ethereum introduced Hoodi in March 2025 to replace Holesky. The new testnet was made to fix the problems that Holesky had. Hoodi is ready for the enhancements that are coming, such as the Fusaka fork, and it has a new group of validators. It also fully supports Pectra features.

Sepolia continues to be the key ecosystem for developers who are interested in dapps and smart contracts.

This rise demonstrated that investors were getting more and more interested in the altcoin. There were 101 large open interest holders in August, which was a record. These developments support the idea that the ETH network is getting busier.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR See More

Sophia Cruz

Financial Writer - Asian & European Desks

Sophia is an experienced writer, reporter and newsdesk member, mostly on the financial sectors. For the past 5 years Sophia has covered a wide variety of topics such as the financial markets, economics, technology, fin-tech and trading. Sophia has been a part of the FX Leaders team since 2017 and works on producing valuable content and information for traders of all levels of experience.