“vLEI on-chain: Verifiable Smart Contracts”, a collaboration between Key State Capital, the Cardano Foundation, and the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF).
Download the report here.
This report serves as both a high level technical roadmap and a regulatory wake-up call. It introduces a new class of smart contracts—verifiable smart contracts—bound to vLEI credentials and powered by KERI (Key Event Receipt Infrastructure).
For web3 builders, the message is clear: begin implementing Verifiable Smart Contract standards now, before regulatory mandates make them requirements rather than competitive advantages. For regulators, the imperative is equally urgent: understand these capabilities before writing rules that assume their absence.
"This collaborative research represents a pivotal moment in the evolution of blockchain technology. By demonstrating how the vLEI public good can bridge the gap between decentralized innovation and regulatory requirements, we are on the cusp of enabling the institutional adoption that has long been promised but never delivered. The vLEI's role as a global trust anchor makes it uniquely positioned to evolve from smart contracts to verifiable smart contracts, leading to an enterprise-grade infrastructure capable of supporting regulated financial activities at global scale."
— Alexandre Kech, CEO of GLEIF
As outlined in a recently published report, “Towards the Global Org eID System,” the convergence of legal identity, regulatory alignment, and technical interoperability is essential for global organizational identity infrastructure. The vLEI, integrated with smart contracts, represents a direct step toward realizing that vision.
The report also addresses one of Web3’s most persistent vulnerabilities: key compromise. Traditional smart contracts offer no recovery if credentials are lost or stolen. Verifiable smart contracts, by contrast, integrate KERI’s cryptographic agility and recovery logic, allowing authorized representatives to re-establish control securely and verifiably.
“Smart contracts between parties benefit from resilient cryptographically agile secure attribution and verifiability by those parties. This project goes a long way in explaining the why and the how.”
— Dr. Samuel Smith, Originator of KERI and Architect of the vLEI
From Smart to Verifiable: Enabling Trust at Scale
Smart contracts have transformed digital agreements, but they remain blind to the real-world identities behind them. Without verifiable provenance, compliance is limited, fraud persists, and institutional adoption stalls.
This report outlines how vLEIs (verifiable Legal Entity Identifiers)—issued by GLEIF and rooted in a global regulatory framework—enable smart contracts to be tied to legally recognized organizations with cryptographic certainty.
"The convergence of GLEIF's global trust infrastructure with blockchain technology represents the missing link for institutional adoption. This report demonstrates that the infrastructure and regulatory framework needed to realize this vision are not theoretical – they are being built today by organizations across the Web3 ecosystem."
— Nicholas Racz, Senior Partner at Key State Capital
The era of Verifiable Smart Contracts is beginning. The only question is who will lead the transformation.
