A Survey on Decentralized Identifiers and Verifiable Credentials

Digital identity has always been one of the keystones for implementing secure and trustworthy communications among parties. The ever-evolving digital landscape has undergone numerous technological transformations that have profoundly reshaped digital identity management, leading to a major shift from centralized to decentralized identity models. The latest stage of this evolution is represented by the emerging paradigm of Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI), which gives identity owners full control over their data. SSI leverages Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) and Verifiable Credentials (VCs), which have been recently standardized by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). These technologies have the potential to build more secure and decentralized digital identity systems, significantly strengthening communication security in scenarios involving many distributed participants. It is worth noting that use of DIDs and VCs is not limited to individuals but extends to a wide range of entities including cloud, edge, and Internet of Things (IoT) resources. However, due to their novelty, existing literature lacks a comprehensive survey on DIDs and VCs beyond the scope of SSI. This paper fills this gap by providing a comprehensive overview of DIDs and VCs from multiple perspectives. It identifies key security threats and mitigation strategies, analyzes available implementations to guide practitioners in making informed decisions, and reviews the adoption of these technologies across various application domains. Moreover, it also examines related regulations, projects, and consortiums emerging worldwide. Finally, it discusses the primary challenges hindering their real-world adoption and outlines future research directions.