7 Verifiable credentials
Verifiable credentials (abbreviated “VCs”), are the very heart of SSI architecture. In this chapter, you will learn how VCs evolved, what they look like as data structures, what different formats and digital signature options are supported, and how VCs have been standardized at World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Your guides will be two of the primary authors of the W3C Verifiable Credentials Data Model 1.0 standard: David Chadwick, Professor of Information Systems Security at the University of Kent, and Daniel Burnett, Executive Director of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and former Blockchain Standards Architect at ConsenSys. Daniel also served as co-chair of the W3C Verifiable Claims Working Group that created the VC standard.
We all use the physical version of verifiable credentials (VCs) many times each day (even though you may not realize it). Examples include plastic credit cards, driving licenses, passports, membership cards, bus passes, and more. We can’t live without them because they provide us with many benefits. In fact, we wouldn’t possess them if they didn’t provide us with those benefits. There would be no point.