# Governance As a system bridge for Polkadot, it is exclusively governed by Polkadot's [OpenGov](https://polkadot.com/opengov/) governance model. This promotes decentralisation in the following ways: * No power is vested in centralised collectives or multisig accounts * Snowfork and its employees have no control over the bridge and its locked-up collateral * Anyone can participate in governance and vote on proposals. ## Cross-chain Governance Our bridge has contracts on the Ethereum side, and these contracts need to be able to evolve along with the parachain side. Cross-chain governance will control both configuration and code upgrades on the Ethereum side. As a prime example, Polkadot and BEEFY consensus algorithms will change, and so we need to make sure the Ethereum side of the bridge remains compatible. Otherwise locked up collateral will not be redeemable. Smart contract upgrades and configuration changes are triggered by Polkadot governance through the use of cross-chain messaging secured by the bridge itself. ## Upgrades The Polkadot side of our bridge is easily upgradable using forkless runtime upgrades. On the Ethereum side, it is more complicated, since smart contracts are immutable. The gateway contract on Ethereum consists of a proxy and an implementation contract. Polkadot governance can send a cross-chain message to the Gateway, instructing it to upgrade to a new implementation contract. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.snowbridge.network/architecture/governance.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.