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Issuer, Holder, Verifier

The three roles in every decentralized identity exchange, often called the trust triangle. The issuer signs and grants a credential, the holder stores it in a wallet and controls presentation, and the verifier checks the signature and status without contacting the issuer in real time.

The triangle is what makes decentralized identity different from federation: the verifier checks a signature rather than calling the issuer, so the issuer does not learn where the credential is used. That removes a surveillance channel and a runtime dependency, and it moves two hard problems onto the verifier: deciding which issuers to trust, and checking revocation without reintroducing the phone-home the model was meant to remove.

See also: verifiable credential, trust registry, revocation registry, what is decentralized identity

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