The Introduction of blockchain-based digital certificates has ushered in a transformative era in the credentialing process with businesses, governments, and educational institutions adopting this new certification form. The immutable nature of blockchain technology ensures that certificates are fraud-proof and accurate.
According to The Ministry of Manpower of Singapore, 660 foreign workers have been banned from employment due to forgery of educational documents. The alarming increase in paper certificate fraud cases is an important reason to transition to digital certificates. Blockchain-based digital certificates are the lasting solution to the flaws of paper certificates providing accuracy, security, traceability, easy verification, and portability.
Let’s discuss the working process of blockchain-based digital certificates and how to check their validity. Additionally, the post highlights some use cases of blockchain-based digital certificates and their benefits to individuals and organizations.
What is a Blockchain-based Digital Certificate?
A blockchain-based Digital Certificate is a digital form of certification stored on the blockchain, such as educational documents, that utilizes blockchain technology to ensure authenticity and prevent forgery. By leveraging the inherent security features of the blockchain, these certificates become almost impossible to counterfeit.
The blockchain acts as a decentralized ledger, recording each certificate’s issuance and ownership details, providing transparent and tamper-proof blockchain traceability. This approach significantly streamlines the verification process, allowing institutions, employers, or other relevant entities to quickly and reliably verify the authenticity of these digital certificates, thereby ensuring the credibility of educational achievements and other forms of accreditation.
How Does a Blockchain-based Digital Certificate Work?
Blockchain is a decentralized ledger that contains many transactions. These transactions are stored in blocks that are cryptographically chained together. As a result, there is no way to change any stored information since that would require manipulating every block.
Four prominent parties are involved in the working process of a blockchain-based digital certificate: issuer, recipient, blockchain, and the certificate system. Digital certificates are issued through the certificate system, the credential platform. The certificate system is responsible for verifying data.
Below is how blockchain-based digital credentials work:
- The issuer (organization) issues a digital certificate to the recipient using the certificate system. The certificate contains a unique ID unique to the recipient, and the credential is stored on the blockchain.
- The certificate is safely stored on the blockchain with the content cryptographically hashed. Certificate validation can only be completed by accessing the blockchain.
- The recipient receives a notification from the credentialing platform that contains the certificate and unique ID.
- Signing into the digital credential platform allows recipients to view their credentials. Verifiers must have that unique ID or cryptographic hash to verify a credential.
How to Check a Certificate’s Validity?
Blockchain technology makes credential verification seamless and fast. Digital credential verification is accomplished by accessing the blockchain using the hash, QR code, or unique ID. For instance, to verify the authenticity of a certificate, an employer signs into the system after receiving a unique code or hash from a job applicant.
What Are The Benefits Of Blockchain-based Digital Certification?
Leveraging blockchain-based digital certificates provides businesses, organizations, and individuals several benefits. These benefits include:
- Transparency
- Accuracy
- Reliability
- Improved traceability
- Improved security
- Cost-effective verification
- Customization
Transparency
The decentralized nature of blockchain allows transparency in issuing and verifying digital certificates. Blockchain technology eliminates the need for a central authority or intermediaries capable of manipulating data.
Accuracy
Blockchain technology ensures that once data is stored, it cannot be falsified or manipulated. Accuracy helps to guarantee the authenticity of every information on certificates.
Reliability
The immutability of blockchain records makes blockchain-based digital certificates reliable and fraud-proof. Digital certificates based on blockchain technology ensure the authenticity of employers and organizations.
Improved Traceability
The immutability of blockchain technology ensures that every certificate on the blockchain cannot be manipulated.
Improved Security
Blockchain technology provides improved security for digital certificates. Digital certificates are cryptographically signed, which makes them unique and tamper-proof.
Cost-effective verification
Blockchain-based digital certificates eliminate the need for manual verification of credentials. This helps organizations save costs as verification of credentials is automated.
Customization
Blockchain-based digital certificates offer a variety of customization for issuers. They are certificate templates for every institution. In addition, customization makes the issuing of certificates quick.
What are the Use Cases that Benefit from Blockchain-based Digital Certificates?
According to the article “The benefits of blockchain for digital certificates: Multiple case study analysis,” published in ScienceDirect in February 2023, blockchain-based digital certificates benefit a wide range of industries. This article examines the use cases of blockchain-based digital certificates in the education, health, and energy sectors. The summary of the benefit analysis of the selected cases reached as a result of the research is given in the table below:
| Organizational Benefits | Individuals Benefits |
| Streamlined Recruitment Process | Cost-effective verification |
| Reduced cost of verification | Seamless travel |
| Facilitates better decision-making | Better management of certificates |
| Legal compliance | Source of motivation for professional development |
| Competitive advantage | Establish trust in organizations |
The use cases of blockchain-based digital certificates examined in this article are as follows:
- Diamond Certificates
- Covid19 Certificates
- Classification Society Certificates
- Artwork Certificates
- Educational Certificates
- Renewable Energy Certificates
Diamond Certificates
Diamond certificates are credentials that are used by DeBeers, the world’s pioneer in diamonds. Creating the certificates solved the provenance problem in the diamond industry. Diamond certificates launched on a permissionless blockchain known as Tracr. A unique digital certificate is made for each diamond to certify its key attributes. The certificate created for each diamond contains transaction history from mining to selling to end customers.
Tracr made it easy for individuals to acquire conflict-free diamonds. Another benefit of Tracr for individuals is the assurance of owning a legally mined diamond.
Tracr offers benefits to organizations in the business of sourcing and registering diamonds. Organizations can verify the authenticity of a diamond and ownership history at a reduced cost. In addition, Tracr improves organizations’ decision-making and ensures they comply with mining regulations.
COVID-19 Certificates
COVID-19 health status certificates are another strong use case of blockchain certificates. The Singapore Health Ministry developed HealthCerts to manage vaccination programs. HealthCerts is a series of open standards designed to manage the issuance of COVID-19 test results certificates and vaccination.
At the pandemic’s peak, COVID-19 certificates made travel seamless and safe for individuals. Only people with vaccination certificates were allowed to travel. The certificates are portable and easily accessible, reducing the possibility of loss.
Airline companies resumed international travel with the introduction of COVID-19 certificates. COVID-19 certificates are easily verified, allowing better decision-making and planning for organizations.
Classification Society Certificates
One of the first classification societies to introduce digital certificates for accreditation is DNV. DNV is a renowned classification society and advisor in maritime, oil and gas, and
renewable energy. DNV issues blockchain-based digital credentials for businesses to showcase accreditation and compliance.
Introducing digital certificates helps maritime businesses reduce fraud, as paper certificates can be forged. Port authorities benefit from using DVN digital certificates as they can verify the authenticity of vessels. DNV digital certificates help customers to establish trust in businesses.
Artwork Certificates
Artwork Certificates are documents that authenticate a piece of art as genuine. These certificates were created to tackle the art industry’s provenance and proof of ownership problems. Artory is an organization that created a blockchain system to verify the authenticity of artworks and their owners.
Artory’s artwork certificates offer several benefits to individuals and organizations. For individuals, it helps to verify the provenance, ownership history, and authenticity of artworks. Individual artists prove copyright ownership and uniqueness by registering their artworks on the blockchain system.
For organizations such as museums and art galleries, Artory’s artwork certificates can verify the originality of an artwork. Organizations establish customer trust with genuine artwork lovers, thereby attracting new customers.
Educational Certificates
Educational certificates are an everyday use case for blockchain-based digital certificates. Educational institutions employ digital credentials to combat certificate forgery, a common problem in the sector. MIT and Learning Machine jointly developed BlockCerts as a tool for issuing and authenticating digital certificates. Blockcerts was later developed to become an Open Standard for creating different types of digital certificates.
BlockCerts provided an easier way for individuals to view, manage, and share certificates with employers. A verifiable digital certificate is a source of motivation for employees to develop professional skills.
Blockcerts provide an avenue for organizations to improve the efficiency of their workforce. Blockcerts reduce the cost and time required for verifying employees’ qualifications, streamlining recruitment processes for organizations.
Renewable Energy Certificates
Renewable energy certificates (REC) are a tool governments use to promote decarbonization of the environment. The traditional REC issuing paper certificates is usually associated with tedious processes, high costs, and high operational errors. The Energy Exchange Istanbul launched Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (YEK-G), which employs blockchain technology to certify electricity from renewable sources.
Who Can Benefit From Blockchain-based Digital Certificates?
The benefits of blockchain-based digital certificates are applicable to various sectors. The ease of verification contributes to the wide adoption of blockchain-based digital certificates. The following entities can benefit from the use of blockchain-based digital certificates:
- Educational Institutions
- Online Learning Platforms and MOOCs
- Corporate Companies
- Conference Organizers and Event Managers
- Government Agencies
- Freelancers and Individual Trainers
- Nonprofit Organizations and Foundations
Educational Institutions
Educational institutions such as schools, universities, and colleges use digital credentials in higher education to reward students for completing their coursework or exams. Digital certificates, diplomas, and micro-credentials are issued to students to ensure the authenticity of academic achievements.
Online Learning Platforms and MOOCs
Massive Online Open courses and online learning platforms issue blockchain-based digital certificates to learners for completion of programs. Using blockchain-based digital certificates ensures that qualifications earned are verifiable and immutable. This helps to protect the credibility of the platform. Blockchain-based digital certificates transform online learning and MOOCs by enhancing security and trust in educational achievements
Corporations
Corporations use blockchain-based digital credentials to streamline recruitment processes, secure licenses, legal compliance, etc. A good example is Alrosa, a leading diamond producer, using diamond certificates. Alrosa joined the Tracr blockchain system in 2018. Moreover, the application of digital certificates in HR departments is proving to be a valuable tool for ensuring compliance and accuracy in employee documentation.
Conference Organizers and Event Managers
Event managers and conference organizers issue digital badges as Proof-of-attendance Protocol (POAP). This means attendees of an event can showcase their digital certificates as proof of attending the event, training, or meeting.
Government Agencies
Government agencies employ blockchain-based digital certificates for several purposes. Immigration services also use digital certificates to verify immigration and citizenship records, ensuring the accuracy and authenticity of an individual’s qualifications. The COVID-19 certificate demonstrates how government agencies benefit from using blockchain-based digital certificates.
Freelancers and Individual Trainers
For freelancers, individual trainers, and gig workers, blockchain certificates can provide a reliable way to demonstrate their skills. Freelancers can easily share their qualifications, skills, and portfolios with potential contractors. Additionally, obtaining a digital certificate for freelancers and individual trainers enhances their credibility and showcases their commitment to professional development in a competitive market.
Non-profit Organizations and Foundations
Blockchain-based certificates can help establish and verify identities and qualifications for nonprofit programs. Digital certificates are issued as proof of participation for volunteers of nonprofit schemes.
Diplomade’s Impact on Diverse Audiences
In a world that thrives on credentials, Diplomade emerges as a transformative force, revolutionizing how various sectors issue, manage, and verify digital certificates. Let’s delve into how Diplomade’s innovative solutions benefit its diverse audience:
1. Educational Institutions:
- Streamlined Credentials: Diplomade ensures the security, authenticity, and lifelong validity of digital credentials, offering a seamless solution for schools, universities, and colleges.
2. Online Learning Platforms and MOOCs:
- Enhanced Credibility: Partnering with Diplomade adds blockchain-based integrity to certificates, boosting learner confidence and employability in a vast array of online courses.
3. Corporate Companies / HR Department:
- Streamlined Hiring: Evidence-based digital credentials from Diplomade empower companies to streamline hiring, verify qualifications, and uplift their workforce, contributing to a stronger Company IQ.
4. Conference Organizers and Event Managers:
- Unified Event Credentials: Diplomade provides a one-stop solution for participants to collect and showcase evidence-based digital certificates from conferences, workshops, and training programs.
5. Government Agencies:
- Efficiency and Transparency: Diplomade enhances government credentialing processes, bringing efficiency, security, and transparency to the issuance of licenses, permits, and official documents.
6. Professional Associations and Certification Bodies:
- Credible Certifications: Diplomade’s blockchain technology elevates the credibility of industry-specific certifications issued by professional associations, adding significant value for professionals.
7. Freelancers and Individual Trainers:
- Market Differentiation: Freelancers and trainers leverage Diplomade to create verifiable digital credentials, establishing credibility and differentiating themselves in a competitive market.
8. Non-profit Organizations and Foundations:
- Secure Educational Programs: Diplomade ensures the integrity of credentialing processes for non-profits, providing recipients with verifiable evidence of their achievements in educational programs or scholarships.
Diplomade’s Ripple Effect:
Diplomade’s impact transcends sectors, fostering a future where credentials are not just digital records but verifiable, secure, and impactful representations of skills and achievements.
Conclusion
Blockchain-based digital credentials are applicable in every industry and offer several benefits to individuals, governments, and organizations. The benefits of utilizing blockchain-based digital certificates include accuracy, transparency, increased security, and reduced costs.With Diplomade, businesses of all sizes and types can create, manage, issue, and verify blockchain digital certificates. Using Diplomade, educational institutions, online learning platforms, freelancers, and event organizers can issue digital credentials.
