Ethereum Team Plans to Develop New Testnet: Holli
The Ethereum Core Devs team is set to develop a new testnet named Holli. This move aims to address the challenges associated with testing on Ethereum's current two testnets. The deployment of Holli is anticipated by the end of this year, aiming to enhance the testing environment for client node developers, dApp developers, and node operators. This solution will address the difficulties many projects face in acquiring testnet ETH for product testing on the existing Ethereum testnets. A new test
The Ethereum Core Devs team is set to develop a new testnet named Holli. This move aims to address the challenges associated with testing on Ethereum's current two testnets.
The deployment of Holli is anticipated by the end of this year, aiming to enhance the testing environment for client node developers, dApp developers, and node operators. This solution will address the difficulties many projects face in acquiring testnet ETH for product testing on the existing Ethereum testnets.
A new testnet, Holli, is planned to launch later this year, and hopefully we can figure out these things before then! I've made two suggestions on the repo, and would love to hear from application layer devs about how we could better approach this!
— timbeiko.eth (@TimBeiko) February 23, 2023
Developer Tim Beiko has stated that the new testnet will be optimized for client developers, applications, and node operators.
Currently, Ethereum has two prominent testnets: Goerli and Sepolia. Goerli is the primary testnet and serves as the first to support various client versions for validators. However, the distribution of its native coin, Goerli-ETH (GoETH), has been inefficient — supply is concentrated in the hands of a small number of validator entities, with only a fraction redistributed to users through faucets and direct Twitter verification.
These distribution methods raise personal information security concerns and are time-consuming for users.
Recently, LayerZero protocol developers introduced a liquidity pool that lets users acquire GoETH using ETH from mainnet. While many developers welcome the move, others have pushed back, arguing it undermines the original "free" principle that testnets are built on.
Sepolia, Ethereum's other testnet, has its own issues: validators can mint Sepolia-ETH (SepETH) freely, and the network is not yet open to all validators, meaning a large share of supply remains concentrated among a handful of entities. These supply and design problems prompted Tim Beiko and the Ethereum team to move forward with building Holli.
To make Holli-ETH more accessible to developers, Beiko proposes randomly airdropping coin supply to addresses that have deployed smart contracts on Ethereum's testnets and mainnet.