Ethereum Developers to Restore Holesky Testnet After Pectra Failure

The Ethereum ecosystem had its All Core Developers Consensus (ACDC) call earlier on March 7, as the conversation around Pectra and Holesky took a new twist. Despite the testnet, including Sepolia, facing finalization issues, developers have unveiled a long-term plan to fix the testing protocol.

Plans for Ethereum Holesky Testnet

At the latest ACDC, developers agreed not to sunset Holesky even after the finalization issues have been addressed. The unanimous agreement to keep Holesky long-term hinges on how integrated the network is with existing Ethereum Decentralized Applications (DApps).

During the call, Lido Dao contributor Ivan Metrikin stressed that the Lido development team must ensure that Pectra is tested on Holesky. 

“Without Holesky finalizing, we’ll have a very hard time like almost impossible to test Pectra related changes to the protocol but also to test whatever integration we have with other protocols that use Lido,” said Metrikin.

As a way forward, developers plan to continue working on Holesky with an estimated timeline for finality testing, which is possible by March 28. By implication, if Holesky and Sepolia are not conditioned to test Pectra changes, it might impact the deployment on the mainnet.

Pectra Upgrade Still on Track

CoinGape reported earlier that the Pectra upgrade launched on Holesky in late February. However, due to issues, it failed to finalize. Developers then deployed Pectra on the Sepolia testnet and faced a similar hiccup.

Considering the current outlook, developers have unveiled different options to explore to proceed with the roadmap. While some DApps are urged to consider a shadow testing ground, efforts to recover the testnets remain intact.

In between the Holesky and Sepolia launch timelines, the developers launched Pectra Devnet 7. This devnet is important because it can mimic the validator testing of the Ethereum mainnet. Ultimately, Ethereum developers are making necessary compromises to keep the Pectra upgrade on track and moving forward with the April launch timeline.

The Future of Ethereum Fusaka Upgrade

While the conversations about Ethereum developers are centered on Pectra for now, the push for Fusaka is subtly ongoing. This is the next upgrade after Pectra, and developers are pushing it to go live this year.

Most of the details around Fusaka remain exclusive for now. However, it will feature spillover EIPs from Pectra. With ecosystem developers agreeing to restore Holesky, Fusaka might benefit in the long term.

The outlook of the ecosystem has contributed to the price drop of ETH. At the time of writing, the coin was changing hands for $2,149, down 2.53% in 24 hours.