Inside the blockchain developer's mind: The upgradeability crisis

In this article, we are going to explore the upgradeability crisis and how computer operating systems could serve as a useful analogy that holds the secret to resolving this crisis and enabling blockchains to achieve mainstream adoption.

The most powerful concept for understanding the upgradeability problem is "Antifragility." Proposed by Nassim Taleb, antifragility is a property of systems that improve when stressed.

Antifragility is a property that emerges from multilayered, hierarchical systems that contain fragile subunits that by breaking/dying/blowing up result in an overall healthier system.

Problem solved, right? While first-generation operating systems provide a massive competitive advantage to the application developers who adopt the right ones, they also suffer from the same upgradeability problem of the first-generation applications.

Upgrading the system requires a system reboot and reloading process that becomes longer and more disruptive the bigger and more complicated it gets.

Blockchains like Ethereum and EOS were designed like these early operating systems.

In the case of blockchains, the problems that plague first-generation operating systems are amplified due to immutability; they are constantly growing in size, which places additional stress on infrastructure and creates a distinct scaling challenge.

What we need is another layer beneath the operating system that enables the entire system to evolve.

In operating systems, that layer is called a BIOS - a basic input/output system.

If we want to cross that same chasm, we don't just need a better blockchain OS, we need an operating system that is built on a BIOS-equivalent for the specific purpose of upgradeability.