This primer gives a shared starting point for leaders, architects, and compliance teams who need to make decisions about Verifiable Credentials and Decentralized Identity (DID/DI) programs.
Executive primer
What are Verifiable Credentials? Digitally signed credentials that reduce onboarding friction and let customers or partners prove claims without repeated integration to your systems.
What is Decentralized Identity? A trust model where identity proof can be exchanged across organisations without a single platform owning the ecosystem.
Focus on: governance, assurance tiers, and the commercial upside of ecosystem participation.
Architect primer
What are Verifiable Credentials? Standardised, portable credential objects that can be issued and verified across heterogeneous platforms and networks.
What is Decentralized Identity? An architecture pattern that preserves choice of wallets, issuers, verifiers, and trust registries while keeping roles separable.
Focus on: lifecycle, interoperability profiles, and clean role separation.
Compliance & security primer
What are Verifiable Credentials? A controlled way to share assertions with selective disclosure and verifier policy controls.
What is Decentralized Identity? A governance-centric approach where trust is defined by accreditation, auditability, and policy rather than a central operator.
Focus on: consent, assurance alignment, and audit-ready lifecycle control.
Where this fits in your program
If you already have Verifiable Credentials use cases in motion, treat this primer as a common language for decision‑making. If you are starting, use it to align on governance, lifecycle controls, and the adoption path before committing to architecture or vendors.
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