Verifiable Relationship Credentials (VRCs)

Semantic & Data Protocol

A verifiable credential type specifying claims that attest a verifiable first-person trust relationship between two holders of Personhood Credentials. VRCs are issued peer-to-peer rather than by a centralized authority — each party signs a credential attesting to the relationship — and together they compose into a decentralized trust graph that can be presented in privacy-preserving ways (e.g., threshold proofs like 'has at least 50 verified relationships' without revealing the specific contacts). VRCs add a relationship-credential semantic layer on top of the W3C Verifiable Credentials Data Model. Originally proposed in the January 2025 Ayra Association paper on Verifiable Relationship Credentials; being standardized by the Decentralized Trust Graph Working Group (DTGWG) alongside PHCs .

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Details

License N/A — specification document, not source code; reference implementations in OpenVTC (Apache-2.0) and other FPP-ecosystem projects are open source
Dev Status 📝 Draft
Dev Status Detail Draft / Standardization in progress (specification under development at DTGWG; reference implementations underway in OpenVTC and the broader First Person Project ecosystem)
Owner Specification origin: Ayra Association (originating paper, January 2025). Standardization: Decentralized Trust Graph Working Group (DTGWG) — joint ToIP-DIF Working Group
Owner - List
  • Trust Over IP Foundation
Governing Body Decentralized Trust Graph Working Group (joint ToIP–DIF working group) | Ayra Association (originating paper, January 2025)
Country International (Ayra Association is a global trust-network governance association)
Start Year 2025
Stack N/A — specification, not implementation
Funding Specification work supported by sponsoring organizations of the DTGWG (ToIP, DIF, Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust, Customer Commons, Ayra Association); originating paper produced by Ayra Association
Funding - List
  • Decentralized Identity Foundation
  • Trust Over IP Foundation
Last Investigated Jul 1, 2026

Topology view

This tool in the centre and the things it is directly related to. Each line names the kind of relationship.

Topology view: Verifiable Relationship Credentials (VRCs)This tool in the centre and the things it is directly related to. Each line names the kind of relationship.VerifiableRelationshi…DIDComm (Basis for)DIDCommFirst Person Project / Network (Basis for, Conforming implementations, Protocol spoken by)First PersonProject / Ne…OpenID for Verifiable Credentials (OpenID4VC) (Basis for)OpenID forVerifiable C…OpenVTC (Basis for, Conforming implementations)OpenVTCPersonhood Credentials (PHCs) (Based on)PersonhoodCredentials…VCs (Based on, Built on, Conforms to, Speaks protocol)VCsJSON-LD (Built on, Speaks protocol)JSON-LDDIDs (Conforms to)DIDsTrust Over IP Foundation (Developed by, Funded by)Trust OverIP FoundationDecentralized Identity Foundation (Funded by, Hosted at)DecentralizedIdentity Fou…

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Use Case Domains

Co-Creation & Knowledge

Affordances

Trust graph portability Portable attestations

Semantic & Data Protocol Attributes

Owner - List
  • Trust Over IP Foundation
Origins Decentralized trust graph / Proof of social attestation (designed to extend the personhood verification provided by PHCs into a richer trust-graph structure that captures real-world relationships as cryptographic credentials)
Database N/A — credentials stored in user-controlled digital wallets; no centralized relationship database is part of the specification (this is a key architectural property — each member keeps their own portable subgraph of trust relationships)
Query Language N/A — credential exchange uses standard VC presentation and verification protocols
Data Formats W3C Verifiable Credentials Data Model (JSON-LD by default; other serializations possible per the underlying VC spec); threshold-based ZKP presentations for relationship counts
Collaborative Live Editing N/A
Rich Text Editing N/A
Mobile Support N/A — credentials can be presented from any wallet on any platform; the specification is platform-agnostic
Web Support N/A — same as above
Native Apps N/A — same as above
Terms Free open standard (no licensing fees for adoption)
Funding - List
  • Decentralized Identity Foundation
  • Trust Over IP Foundation
Funds N/A — open standard, no funding round
Based On W3C Verifiable Credentials Data Model (the underlying credential framework VRCs extend); W3C Decentralized Identifiers (for the DIDs of the two parties in each relationship); Personhood Credentials (PHCs are a prerequisite — VRCs are issued between PHC holders); Verifiable Relationship Credentials paper, Ayra Association, January 2025 (originating specification); zero-knowledge proof cryptography (for threshold-based relationship-count presentation)
Semantic Web Compatibility Full (built on W3C Verifiable Credentials Data Model, which uses JSON-LD as its primary serialization; VRC claims are expressed as RDF-compatible structured data)
Protocol Maturity / Standardization W3C Draft / DTGWG standardization track (Ayra Association paper January 2025; specification work ongoing in the Decentralized Trust Graph Working Group; expected to produce a formal W3C-track specification jointly with PHCs)
Vocabulary / Ontology Type Social relationships / Trust attestation (specifies a credential-type vocabulary for attesting verifiable peer-to-peer trust relationships between unique persons)
Usage Pattern Embedded in other protocols (VRCs are exchanged via standard VC issuance and presentation protocols such as DIDComm and OpenID4VC; the specification defines the semantic content of a particular credential type rather than its transport)

Relationships

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Based on
Built on
Conforms to
Developed by
  • Trust Over IP Foundation
Funded by
  • Decentralized Identity Foundation
  • Trust Over IP Foundation
Hosted at
  • Decentralized Identity Foundation
Speaks protocol
Basis for
Conforming implementations
Protocol spoken by