Ethereum is designed to be highly available, meaning that the network operates without relying on any single entity to remain online. This availability is a core property of the Ethereum platform and community mission to have a network that remains functional and accessible to users around the globe at all times.
The Ethereum network is operated by thousands of network participants, validators and nodes, distributed globally. Each of these nodes independently maintains a copy of the blockchain, and collectively they work to enforce Ethereum's software rules such that correct transactions are consistently settled. Because there are thousands of independent nodes, Ethereum does not depend on any one organisation or server. Even if some nodes go offline or experience issues, the remaining nodes continue to keep the network running.
This distributed and redundant structure creates a resistance to outages and attacks. Unlike centralised systems that almost certainly experience downtime at some point in time, Ethereum lacking a single point of failure makes it difficult to target all the necessary entities or infrastructure to bring down the network. As a result, users and developers have come to trust that Ethereum will remain available and accessible, providing an uninterrupted platform for value transfer, smart contract execution, and application services.