Standards
Blockcerts v3
Also known as: Blockcerts
An open standard for blockchain-anchored verifiable credentials, originally created at MIT Media Lab and now stewarded by Hyland.
Blockcerts is the open standard for cryptographically signed credentials anchored on a public blockchain. It began at the MIT Media Lab in 2017 when MIT issued digital diplomas to graduates on the Bitcoin blockchain. Stewardship is now primarily with Hyland, with ongoing upstream development as of 2026.
Blockcerts v3 is a W3C Verifiable Credentials profile that standardizes the use of MerkleProof2019 signatures anchored to a blockchain. Batches of credentials are hashed into a Merkle tree, the root is committed to the chain as a single transaction, and each credential carries its Merkle path as proof.proofValue.
LearnCoin is built on Blockcerts v3 from day one. Every LearnCoin credential declares https://w3id.org/blockcerts/v3 in its @context array and uses MerkleProof2019 as the proof suite. Credentials are verifiable by any Blockcerts-compatible tool: cert-verifier-js, the blockcerts-verifier Web Component, and native Blockcerts iOS and Android wallets.
LearnCoin contributes upstream — most visibly our Base L2 chain support, contributed back to the lds-merkle-proof-2019 and explorer-lookup repositories.
Related terms