#11DOB Credential & Badge Protocol
Verifiable credentials — course completions, event attendance, skill certs, employment history — issued as Spore DOBs organized in Clusters. Fully on-chain and owned by the holder, each credential is backed by locked CKB the holder can reclaim by melting. Zero transfer fees mean credentials move freely between wallets and apps.
A scoped, beginner-friendly entry into building on CKB. See the "good first slice" in the spec below for a minimal path to a shippable v1.
- CKB properties
- Spore/DOB · First-Class Assets · Cell Model · 1 CKB = 1 Byte
- Primitives
- Spore SDK · CCC
- Inspired by
- Soulbound Tokens, POAP, W3C Verifiable Credentials
- Wants
- smart-contract · frontend
- Author
- dir
- References
- Spore Protocol · Spore docs
- Issuers can create a Cluster representing a credential program (e.g. a course or event).
- Recipients receive a Spore DOB credential under that Cluster, held by the recipient's own Lock.
- A DOB credential schema encoding issuer, credential type, subject, and issue date, verifiable by any reader.
- Holders can melt a credential to reclaim the CKB capacity that backs it.
- A query/verify library that, given a holder address, lists their credentials and the Cluster (issuer) each belongs to.
- Deployed and demoed on CKB testnet with docs.
Problem
Credentials today live in issuer databases (a university portal, an event platform, an HR system). The holder does not own them, cannot port them, and depends on the issuer staying online to prove they exist. POAP-style on-chain badges fixed availability but most are rows in a shared contract with no intrinsic value and awkward portability. On CKB, UGMP makes Spore minting easy and idea #7 (on-chain attestation protocol) covers general composable claims — but there is no credential-specific standard that organizes issuers into Clusters, gives each credential CKB-backed value, and lets holders reclaim that value. The gap is a portable, holder-owned credential standard with economics built in.
Why CKB
A Spore DOB credential is a first-class asset held by the recipient's own Lock — the holder genuinely owns it, not the issuer. Clusters give a natural grouping: one Cluster per course, event, or employer, so a credential's provenance is structural rather than a claimed string. Because storage is capacity (1 CKB = 1 byte), every credential is backed by locked CKB the holder can reclaim by melting it — credentials are not free junk, they carry intrinsic value. And CKB's zero transfer fees mean a credential can move between a holder's wallets or into a third-party app without friction.
Spec
- Issuer Cluster: an issuer creates a Spore Cluster describing a credential program (name, issuer identity, rules).
- Credential DOB: minted under the Cluster, owned by the recipient's Lock. DOB
data/DNA encodes credential type, subject, issue date, and any program-specific fields. - Melt-to-reclaim: the holder can melt their credential to recover the backing CKB capacity, per Spore's standard melt flow.
- Verify library: thin TS layer over the Spore SDK / CCC to issue, list-by-holder, and verify a credential's Cluster lineage.
This is a natural consumer of idea #7's attestation primitives, and a builder-reputation feature
(e.g. in dir itself) would consume credentials issued here to assemble a verifiable track record.
Good first slice. Use the existing Spore SDK to mint a single credential DOB under one Cluster to a recipient address, plus a page that lists a holder's credentials and offers melt-to-reclaim. That's a complete, demoable contribution on testnet; the verify library, multi-program Clusters, and reputation wiring can come as follow-up PRs.
Mini-demo
Sketch: an issuer page creates a "CKB Bootcamp 2026" Cluster and mints completion DOBs to attendee addresses; a holder profile page lists credentials grouped by issuer Cluster and offers a "melt to reclaim CKB" action.
References / prior art
See frontmatter. Compare Soulbound Tokens and POAP (no intrinsic value, weaker portability) and W3C Verifiable Credentials (off-chain data model) — this gives credentials CKB-backed value and on-chain permanence.