VC Data Model 2.0

VC Data Model 2.0 is the second major version of the W3C spec defining what a Verifiable Credential is made of, the JSON-LD structure, required fields, and how a proof attaches to it (see Verifiable Credential). It reached W3C Recommendation status in 2025, several years after 1.0 (2019) and its minor revision, 1.1.

The change a developer hits immediately: 1.1 used issuanceDate and expirationDate; 2.0 replaces them with validFrom and validUntil. The rename is more than cosmetic, validFrom/validUntil describe a validity window that doesn't have to match when the credential was literally created (useful for credentials issued ahead of taking effect, or backdated to a real-world event), while issuanceDate conflated "when this was made" with "when this counts." 2.0 also relaxed the strict JSON-LD context requirement and cleaned up several data-model edge cases 1.1 left ambiguous. It matters beyond tidiness, too: the EU's eIDAS 2.0 / EUDI Wallet architecture is built against 2.0, so anything targeting that ecosystem has to speak it.

Where it comes from

The W3C Verifiable Credentials Working Group, the same body that shipped 1.0/1.1, authored 2.0. Solidus contributed nothing to the spec; we adopted its field names in our own types.

Solidus status

Shipped. @solidus-network/types defines credentials with validFrom/validUntil, confirmed on Solidus's own EUDI-ARF standards-mapping page. Worth naming honestly: a developer-docs example page (concepts/credentials) still shows the older issuanceDate/expirationDate fields: that page is stale and doesn't reflect what actually ships, and it should be corrected rather than copied from.

Proof you can run yourself: npm view @solidus-network/types for the current published version, or read the type definitions directly in the SDK's source, validFrom/validUntil are right there in the interface.