# Upgradability and Governance

Orbis will essentially consist of an L1 smart contract and an associated contract state UTxO; a network of prover nodes; a rollup data structure; the prover node software; and the associated SDKs. Each component may need to be updated to perform an upgrade.&#x20;

A smart contract cannot be updated after it is deployed on Cardano. The only way to upgrade a smart contract is by deploying a new script.&#x20;

To enable a transparent upgrade process for the layer 1 rollup smart contract, the L1 rollup contract must contain a governance protocol.&#x20;

The initial release of Orbis will feature a governance protocol that is based on voting, which is not fully decentralized. The governing body or the “board” of Orbis V1 will be a group of individuals identified by their public keys. Orbis Labs will determine the initial composition of the board.&#x20;

In the centralized versions of Orbis, the prover could potentially manipulate elections not by creating fake votes but by excluding real votes. This is a special case in the centralized versions of Orbis in which the prover could censor transactions. This loophole will be solved in the first decentralized version of Orbis.&#x20;

The first fully decentralized version of Orbis will feature a decentralized governance protocol. Meaning, that it allows for the participation of an unlimited number of actors in the system. The design of the decentralized governance protocol will be announced in a future revision of the whitepaper.


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