Trust infrastructure for VC ecosystems

Open standards are essential, but they don’t create trust by themselves. Ecosystems scale only when governance is clear and verifiers can rely on consistent signals.

What “trust infrastructure” really means

It’s a set of governance and operational components that allow many issuers and verifiers to participate safely:

• Accreditation: who is authorised to issue or verify specific credential types.
• Trust registries: authoritative metadata about issuers, schemas, assurance levels, and status endpoints.
• Assurance policy: shared expectations for security, privacy, and auditability.

Why this matters

Without trust infrastructure, ecosystems fragment. Verifiers fall back to bespoke integrations or avoid VC adoption altogether. With it, interoperability becomes practical and scalable.

Getting started

A pragmatic approach is staged:

1. Define trust foundations and assurance tiers.
2. Pilot with a small set of issuers and verifiers.
3. Expand participation through accreditation once lifecycle and governance are proven.