Ethereum developers recently unveiled a new testnet called “Holešky” on September 15th. The primary purpose of this network is to facilitate staking activities, infrastructure development, and protocol advancements, as outlined in the developer documentation. However, for application development, Sepolia will remain the dominant network of choice.
To kickstart the operations of the Holešky network, an initial supply of 1.6 billion Holešky testnet Ether (HETH) will be distributed to validators on the network’s launch day. This amount is ten times the existing supply of Ether (ETH) on the Ethereum mainnet. Ethereum developer Tim Beiko explained that this substantial allocation was deemed acceptable, considering the fact that “devnets regularly use a 10B supply.”
Previously, the Goerli testnet served as the primary platform for testing new staking mechanisms, infrastructure improvements, and protocol developments. However, concerns were raised in October by protocol developers regarding the limited supply of Goerli ETH, which hindered effective testing procedures. The launch of Holešky, with its generous initial supply of HETH, is expected to alleviate this problem by providing developers with ample resources for testing purposes.
Since the launch of Sepolia in 2021, Ethereum’s development team has been encouraging application developers to transition from Goerli to Sepolia. As a result, only protocol developers remained on the older network until the launch of Holešky. The team aims to deprecate Goerli in January 2024, maintaining it for an additional year before completely shutting it down, according to the project’s documentation.
Holešky is expected to witness significant usage due to Ethereum developers’ ambitious roadmap. The team has plans to implement features such as proto-danksharding and danksharding, which aim to reduce transaction fees. Additionally, they will introduce Verkle trees, a novel technology designed to make running a node more cost-effective. With these advancements on the horizon, Holešky is poised to play a crucial role in Ethereum’s ongoing growth and development.
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