- The Ethereum Foundation announced that it would end the usage of the Holesky testnet beginning in September.
- Hoodi testnet, which went live on Monday, will serve as a substitute for Holesky.
- ETH could recover the $2,200 key level but faces a key hurdle near the $2,070.
Ethereum (ETH) traded above $2,020 on Wednesday following an announcement from the Ethereum Foundation (EF) that it will discontinue the Holesky testnet on September 30.
Ethereum Foundation set to dismiss Holesky testnet, Hoodi to serve as alternative
In a recent blog post, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) announced that it would discontinue the Holesky testnet on September 30 after it “experienced extensive inactivity leaks as part of its recovery mechanism.” The recently launched Hoodi testnet, which went live on Monday, will replace Holesky.
Testnets or test networks are environments where developers can test planned code changes or technical upgrades before deploying them on the mainnet. Holesky was meant for validators and staking providers to test new network features, but Hoodi will serve that function from now on.
Holesky encountered issues when testing the Pectra upgrade on February 24 due to a bug in the configuration of validator clients that prevented transactions from finalizing. After weeks of attempts to recover Holesky, the network reached finality last week, but issues with its recovery mechanism clogged up its validator exit queue.
“The Holesky network has since then finalized, but the exited validators would take approximately one year to fully be removed from the validator set,” the EF wrote. “While stakers can test deposits, consolidations and all other Pectra features, the size of the exit queue prevents Holesky from being used to test the full validator life cycle within a reasonable timeframe,” they added.
Developers plan to activate Pectra on Hoodi on March 26 and eventually ship it onto mainnet 30 days later — if the upgrade goes smoothly.
“Moving forward, staking operators and infrastructure providers should use Hoodi for validator testing,” the EF continued.
Pectra will introduce several features to Ethereum, including increased staking limits, account recovery options, sponsored transactions and payment of gas fees in other ERC-20 tokens apart from ETH.
Ethereum Price Forecast: ETH eyes move to $2,200 but faces a key hurdle at $2,070
Ethereum sustained $83.17 million in futures liquidations in the past 24 hours, per Coinglass data. The total amount of liquidated long and short positions accounted for $66.27 million and $16.90 million, respectively.
ETH surged above a descending trendline resistance extending from February 25 and is looking to recover the $2,070 level. The rise follows a ten-day period of sustained consolidation where ETH failed to move above the $2,000 psychological level.
ETH/USDT daily chart
If ETH holds the descending trendline as support, it could rally above $2,070 to tackle the $2,200 critical resistance. However, a firm rejection at $2,070 could see ETH decline toward the support at $1,818.
The Relative Strength Index (RSI) and Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) lines are trending upward but still below their neutral levels. This indicates a weakening bearish momentum.
A daily candlestick close below $1,818 will invalidate the thesis and send ETH toward the support at $1,500.
Ethereum FAQs
Ethereum is a decentralized open-source blockchain with smart contracts functionality. Its native currency Ether (ETH), is the second-largest cryptocurrency and number one altcoin by market capitalization. The Ethereum network is tailored for building crypto solutions like decentralized finance (DeFi), GameFi, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), etc.
Ethereum is a public decentralized blockchain technology, where developers can build and deploy applications that function without the need for a central authority. To make this easier, the network leverages the Solidity programming language and Ethereum virtual machine which helps developers create and launch applications with smart contract functionality.
Smart contracts are publicly verifiable codes that automates agreements between two or more parties. Basically, these codes self-execute encoded actions when predetermined conditions are met.
Staking is a process of earning yield on your idle crypto assets by locking them in a crypto protocol for a specified duration as a means of contributing to its security. Ethereum transitioned from a Proof-of-Work (PoW) to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism on September 15, 2022, in an event christened “The Merge.” The Merge was a key part of Ethereum’s roadmap to achieve high-level scalability, decentralization and security while remaining sustainable. Unlike PoW, which requires the use of expensive hardware, PoS reduces the barrier of entry for validators by leveraging the use of crypto tokens as the core foundation of its consensus process.
Gas is the unit for measuring transaction fees that users pay for conducting transactions on Ethereum. During periods of network congestion, gas can be extremely high, causing validators to prioritize transactions based on their fees.
