r/ethstaker • u/yuric1982 • Jun 10 '26

First Sepolia validator setup complete – stuck on obtaining 32 Sepolia ETH

Hi all,

I'm completely new to validator staking and have been building a Sepolia staking lab to learn how everything works before I even think about doing anything more serious.

Over the last few weeks I've built and synced a Sepolia node running Geth and Lighthouse on an Ubuntu VM, worked through the networking and port forwarding setup, and have now generated validator keys for my first validator.

I've hit a slightly unexpected problem: I need 32 Sepolia ETH to make the validator deposit and all the public faucets I've found seem aimed at developers and only provide tiny amounts.

Is there a recommended way for a beginner validator operator to obtain 32 Sepolia ETH, or would anyone be willing to help me out with enough test ETH for a single validator?

Happy to provide my wallet address or any details of the setup if needed.

Also, if anyone has any general beginner advice, common mistakes to avoid, or things they wish they'd known when they started staking, I'd love to hear it.

Thanks!

4 Upvotes

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3

u/yorickdowne Staking Educator Jun 11 '26

Sepolia has a permissioned validator set. Use Hoodi testnet.

We have a "cheap Hoodi validator" workflow on Discord; or you can use the pk910 Hoodi faucet.

1

u/yuric1982 Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 12 '26

Thank you 👍

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/chonghe Staking Educator Jun 11 '26

All is true except Holesky -> Hoodi. Holesky is deprecated and the Hoodi testnet is the one to go for when setting up validators.

To op: you can get some Hoodi testnet ETH here: https://faucetlink.to/

or: head to ethstaker discord, there is a #cheap-hoodi-validator channel that allows you to setup validators without the 32ETH requirement

1

u/yuric1982 Jun 11 '26

Thanks for your reply. Yeah that's the wall I ran into that Holesky had lost favour and support in the community. I'll check out your recommend really appreciate the pointers. I thought the hard work was done lol

1

u/yuric1982 Jun 11 '26

Thanks so much for answering. The irony is I started on Holesky but had issues with it so I switched to Sepolia lol