The Rinkeby testnet was an Ethereum test network that used a proof-of-authority (PoA) consensus mechanism and was maintained by the Geth client team. Developers used Rinkeby to experiment with smart contracts, wallets, and dApps in an environment that behaved similarly to Mainnet but with free test ETH.
Rinkeby has been deprecated, and most new development has moved to testnets such as Goerli and Sepolia. Existing references to Rinkeby are therefore primarily of historical and archival interest.
