Credentials
Verifier
The role in a W3C Verifiable Credentials flow that receives a credential and cryptographically checks it — can be a human, system, or AI agent.
The verifier is whoever consumes a Verifiable Credential and checks its authenticity. A verifier can be a human using a wallet, a backend system processing an API request, a recruiter clicking a public URL, or an AI agent inspecting a credential's JSON-LD.
Verification has four independent checks: (1) the signature matches the key declared in the issuer's DID document, (2) the document hasn't been tampered with since signing (canonical-hash consistency), (3) any blockchain anchor transaction actually landed, and (4) the credential hasn't been revoked. A credential that passes all four is cryptographically valid — no trust in the issuer's API required.
LearnCoin's stance: verification is free, forever, for anyone. The public verification page at learncoin.me/c/<id> runs all four checks client-side. AI agents and external verifier services can also run them independently against the raw JSON-LD. The "free for verification" commitment is a contract point, not a feature flag — charging for verification is a trust violation in the LearnCoin model.
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