• Claim: A claim is a statement about a subject, e.g. about their identity, location, accomplishments, owned property, etc.

  • Issuer/Verifier: A role an entity performs by asserting and verifying claims about one or more subjects, creating a verifiable credential from these claims, and transmitting the verifiable credential to a subject or holder. Example issuers include corporations, non-profit organizations, trade associations, governments, and individuals.

  • Subject/Holder: An entity about which claims are made. Example subjects include human beings, animals, and things. In many cases the holder of a verifiable credential is the subject, but in certain cases it is not.

  • Verifiable Credential/Attestation: is an attestation made by an Issuer to verify the validity of a claim. Credentials include an identifier and metadata to describe properties of the credential, such as the issuer, the expiry date, a public key to use for verification purposes, the revocation mechanism, etc. The metadata is signed cryptographically to prove who issued it.

  • Verifiable Credentials Registry: A role a system might perform by mediating the creation and verification of identifiers, keys, and other relevant data, such as verifiable credential schemas, revocation registries, issuer public keys, and so on, which might be required to use verifiable credentials.