---
id: "papers-vc-spec-enhancement-strategy-proposal"
type: "paper"
type_label: "Papers and paper collections"
title: "VC Spec Enhancement Strategy Proposal"
maintainer: "Samuel M. Smith"
authors:
  - "Samuel M. Smith"
date: "2022-04-04"
year: 2022
reading_level: "practitioner"
reading_level_label: "Practitioner"
reading_level_meaning: "architects, product people and adopters who know identity systems"
evidence: "informative"
evidence_meaning: "an author's paper, deck, tutorial or post explaining the suite"
status: "quiet"
status_meaning: "no change in six to eighteen months; still correct"
access: "public"
access_meaning: "anyone with the link"
topics:
  - "comparisons"
  - "theory"
roles:
  - "security-architect"
  - "communications"
  - "researcher"
source_url: "https://github.com/SmithSamuelM/Papers/blob/master/whitepapers/VC_Enhancement_Strategy.md"
source_license: null
source_license_note: null
found_on: "smith-papers"
kerisse_credit: false
abstract_license: "CC BY 4.0"
abstract_license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
abstract_attribution: "KSKB, the KERISuite Knowledge Base (https://kskb.dev/)"
last_checked: "2026-10-15"
kskb_url: "https://kskb.dev/cards/papers-vc-spec-enhancement-strategy-proposal/"
kskb_app_url: "https://kskb.dev/#item/papers-vc-spec-enhancement-strategy-proposal"
kskb_record_url: "https://kskb.dev/data/kskb/resources/papers-vc-spec-enhancement-strategy-proposal"
kskb_markdown_url: "https://kskb.dev/export/cards/papers-vc-spec-enhancement-strategy-proposal.md"
---

# VC Spec Enhancement Strategy Proposal

A position paper on strategy for the W3C Verifiable Credentials (VC) specification, arguing that Linked Data (JSON-LD/RDF) is a barrier to VC adoption and that a JSON Schema based VC specification with self-addressing identifiers (SAIDs) should be the primary path, with sections on semantic interoperability, labeled property graphs, immutable schemas and canonicalization. For participants in credential standards work.

Labels: reading level Practitioner; evidence informative (an author's paper, deck, tutorial or post explaining the suite).
Source: https://github.com/SmithSamuelM/Papers/blob/master/whitepapers/VC_Enhancement_Strategy.md (license not recorded).
The abstract is KSKB's own text under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/; credit KSKB, the KERISuite Knowledge Base (https://kskb.dev/).