Trust Registries

Understanding Trust Registries: Who to Trust in the Digital Credential World

A trust registry associates recognized Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) with issuer information such as an organization's name, website, and location. Looking up a credential's issuer DID tells an application whether that issuer is recognized by a registry it relies on; it does not prove the credential's claims are true or replace signature and status verification.

How LearnCard queries registries

The LearnCard app's useKnownDIDRegistry hook performs a separate issuer lookup:

1. Fetch known-did-registries.json and untrusted-did-registries.json.

2. Configure separate registry clients with those registry lists.

3. Look up the issuer identifier in both clients using lookupIssuersFor.

4. Return trusted if the known registries match, otherwise untrusted if the untrusted registries match, or unknown when neither matches.

A matching entry supplies issuer metadata for display and trust decisions. Calling the SDK's verifyCredential alone does not perform this registry lookup.

Registries LearnCard ships with

The source list lives in packages/learn-card-registries/known-did-registries.json. It currently contains these six registries:

Registry	Type	Registry URL or trust anchor
LEF Member Registry	dcc-legacy	LearnCard trusted registry
OpenSALT Test Issuer Registry	oidf	OpenSALT staging trust anchor
DCC Sandbox Registry	dcc-legacy	Sandbox registry
DCC Community Registry	dcc-legacy	Community registry
DCC Member Registry	dcc-legacy	Member registry
MSP Registry	dcc-legacy	My Skills Pocket registry

Each descriptor includes a name, type, and governanceUrl. JSON (dcc-legacy) registries specify a url pointing to issuer entries; OpenID Federation (oidf) registries specify a trustAnchorEC for discovery. Test and sandbox entries are included in the shipped list, not only production registries; integrators should choose registries appropriate to their use case.

What listing gets you

Listing your exact issuing DID in the LEF Member Registry lets LearnCard recognize your organization and display its registered name, website, and location. Recipients see a trusted issuer instead of an unverified-issuer notice. LEF registry membership also enables restricted features such as sending credentials to phone numbers.

Listing does not make every credential from that DID valid: verifiers still need to check signatures, credential status, and their own acceptance requirements. An unlisted issuer is unknown to the registry, not necessarily fraudulent.

Get listed

Follow Get Listed as a Trusted Issuer to submit your organization's DID and metadata for review.