Topic starter
16/01/2026 2:43 pm
TL;DR: Trust registries add the governance layer that cryptography alone cannot provide, letting verifiers decide whether issuers are authorised, recognised, and contextually valid across wallets, APIs, and decentralized ecosystems, according to Raidiam. The hard problem is no longer proving a credential is intact; it is proving the authority behind it and governing that trust at scale.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by Raidiam: “What Is a Trust Registry? Scaling Digital Trust for Wallets and Verifiable Credentials”.
Key questions
Q: How should teams decide whether to trust a verifiable credential?
A: Teams should accept a verifiable credential only after checking both cryptographic validity and the issuer’s authority in the relevant governance framework.
Q: Why do cryptographic credentials still need a trust registry?
A: Cryptography proves integrity, but it does not prove legitimacy.
Q: What breaks when trust decisions are built only from static allowlists?
A: Static allowlists break when ecosystems expand across jurisdictions, sectors, or participant types.
Practitioner guidance
- Define acceptance policy by issuer authority Separate proof of credential integrity from approval to accept the credential.
- Map issuer recognition to governance rules Create a registry-backed model for issuer eligibility, credential scope, and revocation status so teams are not rebuilding trust decisions in every downstream application.
- Reduce bespoke verifier integrations Replace one-off trust checks with a shared discovery process for who may issue or verify each credential type, especially where wallets and APIs cross organisational boundaries.
Bottom line: Cryptographic integrity and governance legitimacy are different controls, and identity programmes need both to make credential acceptance defensible.
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08/10/2026 4:43 pm
Trust registries are the governance layer that cryptography cannot supply. Cryptography can prove integrity, but it cannot prove authority, scope, or ecosystem recognition. That means the real identity control problem is not whether a credential is intact, but whether the issuing or verifying party is legitimately trusted for this use case. Practitioners should treat authority as an explicit governance object, not an implicit assumption.
A few things that frame the scale:
- Only 44% of developers are reported to follow security best practices for secrets management, exposing a significant developer behaviour gap, according to the State of Secrets in AppSec.
A question worth separating out:
Q: How should organisations govern credential trust across wallets and APIs?
A: Organisations should use a shared governance model that publishes who can issue or verify each credential type and what conditions apply to acceptance. That keeps wallet-based presentation, API-based exchange, and cross-domain recognition aligned without forcing every application to maintain separate trust relationships.
👉 Read our full editorial: Trust registries and NHI governance: why cryptographic trust falls short