Ethereum’s Holesky Hits Finality After 2 Weeks as Pectra Testing Continues

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By Shaurya Malwa|Edited by Sheldon Reback

Mar 11, 2025, 12:35 p.m. UTC

Ethereum’s Holesky testnet achieved finality nearly two weeks after the Pectra upgrade, overcoming a client-software configuration bug that had prevented finality since Feb. 24.
The Sepolia testnet, also running the Pectra upgrade, reached finality but encountered issues with empty blocks due to a flawed deposit contract, which have since been resolved.

Ethereum’s Holesky testnet finally reached finality on Monday, nearly two weeks after the Pectra upgrade went live.

Epoch 119,090 sealed the deal at around 19:00 UTC, with over two-thirds of validators validating the network. An epoch is a period of time when a specific number of blocks is completed on the blockchain.

STORY CONTINUES BELOW

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Finality, which locks transactions irreversibly within two epochs, or about 13 minutes, had been absent since Feb. 24 due to a configuration bug in the client software, not the Pectra upgrade itself.

Restoration efforts over the past weeks enabled this recovery. Developers are now stabilizing nodes and pruning old states to fully revive the testnet for Pectra testing.

The Sepolia testnet, also running Pectra, achieved finality but later faced empty blocks from a flawed deposit contract. An attacker exploited this by sending zero-token transfers, Ethereum developers noted, an issue later resolved by client teams.

The Pectra upgrade introduces key enhancements such as gas payments in non-ETH tokens, account abstraction, and higher staking limits.

Shaurya is the Co-Leader of the CoinDesk tokens and data team in Asia with a focus on crypto derivatives, DeFi, market microstructure, and protocol analysis.
Shaurya holds over $1,000 in BTC, ETH, SOL, AVAX, SUSHI, CRV, NEAR, YFI, YFII, SHIB, DOGE, USDT, USDC, BNB, MANA, MLN, LINK, XMR, ALGO, VET, CAKE, AAVE, COMP, ROOK, TRX, SNX, RUNE, FTM, ZIL, KSM, ENJ, CKB, JOE, GHST, PERP, BTRFLY, OHM, BANANA, ROME, BURGER, SPIRIT, and ORCA.
He provides over $1,000 to liquidity pools on Compound, Curve, SushiSwap, PancakeSwap, BurgerSwap, Orca, AnySwap, SpiritSwap, Rook Protocol, Yearn Finance, Synthetix, Harvest, Redacted Cartel, OlympusDAO, Rome, Trader Joe, and SUN.