Ethereum Mainnet was historically secured by proof of work. On September 15th, Proof of Work Ethereum "merged" with the beacon chain Proof of Stake system, marking the end of Proof of Work for Ethereum, and the full transition to Proof of Stake.

September 15th.

Goerli is the most stable testnet, which will provide the best testing environment for mainnet contracts.
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Goerli has a strong community using and maintaining the network, as well as a diverse validator client set.

By migrating to only Goerli, all testnet liquidity will be on the same testnet. This allows more composability to develop on testnets across protocols that might otherwise be hard to test together.

Kovan and Ropsten are already deprecated by the Ethereum Foundation, and Rinkeby is soon to follow. There is a high chance Kovan and Ropsten will fail without warning, as they are no longer actively maintained. We never want developers on Alchemy to be caught by surprise, so we’ve proactively set a concrete date for deprecation to allow for a smooth transition to Goerli, which will remain an actively supported testnet.

We don't want you to be surprised by failing testnets. Kovan, Ropsten & Rinkeby all have short term risk of major network issues, so migrating as soon as possible to Goerli will minimize your exposure to possible network forks and stoppages.

Kovan has been officially deprecated by the EF for well over a year. It is not receiving any network upgrades. Only two validators remain on the network and they may turndown very soon, at which point the network will halt. If you are migrating from Kovan to Goerli on Optimism, use this guide. Given that Kovan has been deprecated by the Ethereum community, in order to continue to provide our ecosystem with a stable test network that remains in sync with Ethereum post-merge, Optimism is following suit.

Ropsten Testnet was the first major network to undergo the Proof of Work to Proof of Stake upgrade on June 8th. After merging to Proof of Stake, Ropsten is no longer supported by the Ethereum community, and there are risks of major network issues moving forward. Follow these guidelines to switch from Ropsten to Goerli.

Rinkeby, a geth-based proof-of-authority testnet, will not transition to proof-of-stake and will be shut down in Q2/Q3 2023. Rinkeby is no longer a suitable testing environment for the Ethereum mainnet. Unplanned mainnet upgrades may no longer be applied to deprecated testnets. If you’re building on Arbitrum, follow these guidelines to switch from Rinkeby to Goerli.

Get Goerli ETH from the Goerli Faucet. Create an Alchemy account and get 0.1 free Goerli ETH (gETH) from Alchemy's Goerli faucet.

If you need larger quantities, let us know. For more information, learn how to get test ETH from a Goerli faucet.

All methods currently supported on Ropsten are also supported on Goerli.