Can a Smart Contract Be Updated or Changed after It Has Been Deployed?

By design, smart contracts on a blockchain are immutable, meaning their code cannot be changed once deployed. This is a core security feature.

However, this rigidity can be a problem if bugs are discovered or upgrades are needed. To address this, developers can implement proxy patterns or other upgradeability patterns.

These involve deploying a new contract with the updated logic while the original contract, which holds the state and address, delegates calls to the new one. This provides a mechanism for change while maintaining a persistent contract address.