--- title: Blockcerts description: "Open Standard for Blockchain Certificates" excerpt: > Blockcerts is an open standard for building apps that issue and verify blockchain-based official records. These may include certificates for civic records, academic credentials, professional licenses, workforce development, and more. Blockcerts consists of open-source libraries, tools, and mobile apps enabling a decentralized, standards-based, recipient-centric ecosystem, enabling trustless verification through blockchain technologies. header: image: /images/blockcerts-header.png permalink: /blockchain/bitcoin/blockcerts/ categories: ["Blockchain"] tags: ["Bitcoin","Learning Machine"] --- * [Learning Machine](https://www.learningmachine.com/) * [Blockcerts](https://www.blockcerts.org/) - [Forum](http://community.blockcerts.org/) - [Github](https://github.com/blockchain-certificates) - [Twitter](https://twitter.com/blockcerts) > open standard for issuing and verifying blockchain-based official records; The project offers open-source libraries, tools, and mobile apps. MIT has [issued](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/10/19/mit-introduces-digital-diplomas) digital certificates based on this standard. * [Introduction](https://www.blockcerts.org/guide/) > Blockcerts is an open standard for building apps that issue and verify blockchain-based official records. These may include certificates for civic records, academic credentials, professional licenses, workforce development, and more. > > Blockcerts consists of open-source libraries, tools, and mobile apps enabling a decentralized, standards-based, recipient-centric ecosystem, enabling trustless verification through blockchain technologies. > > Blockcerts uses and encourages consolidation on open standards. Blockcerts is committed to self-sovereign identity of all participants, and enabling recipient control of their claims through easy-to-use tools such as the certificate wallet (mobile app). Blockcerts is also committed to availability of credentials, without single points of failure. ![](/images/blockcerts.png) * [Academic Credentialing and the Blockchain](https://www.learningmachine.com/academic-credentialing-blockchain/) * [Blockcerts — An Open Infrastructure for Academic Credentials on the Blockchain](https://medium.com/mit-media-lab/blockcerts-an-open-infrastructure-for-academic-credentials-on-the-blockchain-899a6b880b2f) * [Top 10 Reasons to Use Blockcerts](https://medium.com/learning-machine-blog/top-10-reasons-to-use-blockcerts-ec7d29f2712c) > The open standard for issuing blockchain-based records is your easiest bet for creating records that remain verifiable for a lifetime. * [A Decentralized Approach to Blockcerts Credential Revocation](https://github.com/WebOfTrustInfo/rebooting-the-web-of-trust-fall2017/blob/master/final-documents/blockcerts-revocation.md) * [Badges and Blockcerts](https://www.learningmachine.com/badges-and-blockcerts/) > In education and workforce development, it’s important to understand the differences between digital credential formats and how to combine them for greatest impact. > ... > 2011 saw the birth of Open Badges, which digitally and visually convey the achievement of a specific skill. Similar to the Scouts movement, which uses a small fabric symbol to represent specific achievements, digital badges were designed to convey a singular achievement through a digital image and a hosted set of data. Initially spearheaded by the Mozilla Foundation, the Open Badges standard is now maintained by the IMS Global Learning Consortium, ensuring interoperability between platforms. > ... > In response to the desire for high-stakes credentials in a digital format, the development of Blockcerts began in 2015 as part of a project by the MIT Media Lab. ![](/images/blockcerts.jpg) ## Literature * [Healthcare and Digital Credentials: Technical, Legal, and Regulatory Considerations](http://www.fsmb.org/siteassets/digital-credentials/digital-credentials-report-june-2019.pdf) * [Security analysis of a blockchain-based protocol forthe certification of academic credentials](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1910.04622.pdf) by Marco Baldi, Franco Chiaraluce, Migelan Kodra and Luca Spalazzi > Abstract—We consider a blockchain-based protocol forthe certification of academic credentials named Blockcerts,which is currently used worldwide for validating digitalcertificates of competence compliant with the Open Badgesstandard. We study the certification steps that are per-formed by the Blockcerts protocol to validate a certificate,and find that they are vulnerable to a certain typeof impersonation attacks. More in detail, authenticationof the issuing institution is performed by retrieving anunauthenticated issuer profile online, and comparing somedata reported there with those included in the issuedcertificate. We show that, by fabricating a fake issuerprofile and generating a suitably altered certificate, anattacker is able to impersonate a legitimate issuer andcan produce certificates that cannot be distinguished fromoriginals by the Blockcerts validation procedure. We alsopropose some possible countermeasures against an attackof this type, which require the use of a classic public keyinfrastructure or a decentralized identity system integratedwith the Blockcerts protocol.
[Blockcerts: The Open Standard for Blockchain Credentials](https://www.slideshare.net/SSIMeetup/blockcerts-the-open-standard-for-blockchain-credentials) - [SSI-Meetup – Webinar 39](https://ssimeetup.org/blockcerts-open-standard-blockchain-credentials-daniel-paramo-anthony-ronning-webinar-39/) ## Adoption * [MIT Launches Blockcerts Certification Using Bitcoin](https://news.bitcoin.com/mit-blockcerts-certification-bitcoin/) (10/2016) > The MIT Media Lab project has already deployed a few instances of blockchain-based digital certificate verification. In October of 2015, the group issued certificates to Media Lab alumni who attended the Lab’s 30th anniversary. The organization Learning Machine also issued HR certificates to employees. MIT’s Global Entrepreneurship Bootcamp workshop in Seoul, South Korea in March 2016 published digital verification using the system. Lastly, Laboratorio para la Ciudad issued digital certificates to workshop participants in Mexico City in September 2015. * [education.gov.mt - Blockcerts Public Key Registry](https://education.gov.mt/en/Blockcerts/Pages/Blockcerts-Public-Key-Registry.aspx) * [MIT Introduces Digital Diplomas](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/10/19/mit-introduces-digital-diplomas) * [CXC (Carribean) Pilots E-Certificates on the Blockchain](https://www.cxc.org/cxc-pilots-e-certificates-on-the-blockchain/) ### Cowcerts {% include video id="3UvDv7OXsFs" provider="youtube" %} * [Verifiable credentials using blockchain](https://www.cowstamp.com/) ([twitter](https://twitter.com/cowcerts)) ([gitlab](https://gitlab.com/cowcerts/)) > Create, issue and receive verifiable credentials registered using blockchain technologies in a user-friendly fashion * [Cowcerts for Education](https://cowcerts.readthedocs.io/en/develop/edu/index.html) - Cowcerts for Education provides a data model for digital certificates to prove that someone has completed their education successfully. > * provides extensions to the following base standards: > * [Open Badges](https://openbadgespec.org/) standard > * [Blockcerts](https://blockcerts.org/) standard * [cowcerts/schemas/](https://gitlab.com/cowcerts/schemas) > Specifications, JSON Schemas and JSON Linked Data definitions for Cowcerts certificates [https://cowcerts.dev](https://cowcerts.dev)