The Ethereum development team announced the shutdown of three testnets – Ropsten, Kiln and Rinkeby – after the mainnet transition to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm.

This has already been mentioned several times, but here is a convenient announcement for the deprecation and shutdown timelines for Kiln, Ropsten & Rinkeby 🌅

Time to switch to Goerli & Sepolia for all your testing needs ⚙️https://t.co/Izwla9vGDA

— Tim Beiko | timbeiko.eth 🐼 (@timbeiko) 21 June 2022

Testnets provide an environment for application developers to deploy and check for errors before they are deployed. The Ethereum team recalled that these are fully functional blockchains with a growing history and volume.

“Ultimately, this makes it harder to run nodes and maintain them. For this reason, some testnets are periodically shut down.

Developers will stop supporting the Bakery testnet immediately after Ethereum’s transition to PoS, or what’s called a “merge.” [The Merge]. The pilot network was launched in 2022.

On June 8, Ropsten was successfully transferred to the PoS consensus. However, it will be shut down in the fourth quarter of 2022.

The Rinkeby network will not be routed through The Merge. It will cease operations around the second/third quarter of 2023.

For users and app developers, the Ethereum team suggested using the Goerli or Sepolia testnets, which will be supported after the “merge”.

Ethereum developers also reminded that the Gray Glacier update is scheduled for block 15,050,000 on the mainnet. Its sole purpose is to delay the activation of the “difficulty bomb” by about 100 days. The upgrade is expected to happen on June 30.

Recall that the Ethereum team expects to keep The Merge on the mainnet in August.

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