Critically Important Holesky Testnet Launch Failed on Ethereum: What’s Happening?

Ethereum (ETH) faced a setback today as its new testnet Holesky failed to launch due to an error.

Some validators manually fixed the configuration and were able to start the chain, but this was not enough for the network to reach “finality,” the point at which blocks are considered irreversible.

The Holesky testnet is designed to be twice the size of the mainnet, with 1.46 million validator nodes, making Holesky the largest testnet in Ethereum history. Ethereum developers said that the size of the network is not an issue, rather it is their misconfiguration of the network that causes the big problem.

“Ethereum Testnet Will Relaunch in Two Weeks”

Developers are now awaiting a decision on how to proceed with the Holesky testnet. They said it was extremely likely that they would be able to reboot the network with the new genesis files and have the network up and running in about two weeks.

According to Parithosh Jayanthi, a developer at the Ethereum Foundation, Holesky will be able to handle a client size three times larger than the Ethereum mainnet today.

“We need to launch Holesky with this many validators to ensure we can safely test the limits of the Beaconchain,” Jayanthi said in a tweet.

*This is not investment advice.