W3C VC
W3C VC is the Verifiable Credentials Data Model, the World Wide Web Consortium's open standard for how a verifiable credential is structured: which claims it carries, who issued it, about whom, and how its cryptographic proof is attached.
The data model is deliberately format-agnostic. It fixes the shape of a credential, meaning the issuer, the subject, the claims, the validity period and the status information, while leaving the choice of proof mechanism open, so the same credential can be secured with a Data Integrity proof or enveloped in a JOSE or COSE signature. That separation is what lets a wallet built for one ecosystem read a credential issued in another: the meaning of the data does not change when the signature format does. It is the vocabulary most other specifications in this space build on, including the presentation and issuance protocols a wallet actually speaks. Version 2.0 of the data model added explicit support for status mechanisms such as a revocation bitstring, defined how a credential can be extended with vendor-specific vocabularies without breaking interoperability, and clarified how a verifiable presentation is derived from one or more credentials to answer a specific request. W3C VC credentials typically travel as JSON-LD, giving each field a globally unambiguous meaning through linked-data contexts rather than a locally defined schema, which matters when credentials issued in one country need to be understood correctly by a verifier in another without prior agreement between the two. In practice, a W3C VC credential is often the payload carried by a higher-level exchange protocol such as OpenID4VCI for issuance or OpenID4VP for presentation, which handle the transport and session mechanics that the data model itself deliberately leaves out.
Does a W3C VC credential dictate which signature format must be used?
No. The data model fixes the shape of a credential, its issuer, subject, claims and status information, but deliberately leaves the proof mechanism open. The same credential can be secured with a Data Integrity proof or enveloped in a JOSE or COSE signature, which is what lets wallets and verifiers built for different signature choices still agree on what the credential actually says.