During presentation exchange, the issuee's role becomes more nuanced. The discloser (entity presenting credentials) may or may not be the issuee of the disclosed ACDCs. This separation enables:

• Self-presentation: Issuees presenting credentials about themselves
• Third-party presentation: Authorized parties presenting credentials about others
• Chained credentials: Complex DAG structures where issuees of parent credentials become issuers of child credentials

Edge Operators and Chaining

The issuee plays a critical role in ACDC chaining through edge operators:

• I2I (Issuer-to-Issuee): The default operator requiring the issuer of a child credential to be the issuee of the parent credential, creating strict delegation chains
• DI2I (Delegated-Issuer-to-Issuee): Extends I2I to include formally delegated AIDs of the issuee, enabling organizational hierarchies
• NI2I (Not-Issuer-to-Issuee): Permits any identifier to chain credentials regardless of issuee relationships, used for contextual references

These operators define the logical relationships between credentials in a verifiable graph, with the issuee serving as the pivot point for authority delegation.

Related Terms

• Holder: In traditional credential terminology, the holder is the entity possessing a credential. In ACDC, the holder is typically the issuee, though credentials may be held by custodial agents
• Subject: The entity about which claims are made. In ACDC, the subject is synonymous with the issuee
• Disclosee: The recipient of a credential disclosure, which may or may not be the issuee depending on the exchange pattern

Privacy and Disclosure Implications

The optional nature of the issuee field enables sophisticated privacy patterns:

• Selective disclosure: Issuee information can be revealed progressively through compact disclosure mechanisms
• Graduated disclosure: Credentials can be presented initially without revealing the issuee, with full details disclosed only after contractual protections are established
• Correlation resistance: Untargeted credentials avoid creating correlatable identifiers across different contexts

The issuee's AID, when present, establishes a cryptographically verifiable binding between the credential claims and the subject entity, enabling end-to-end verification of credential chains without relying on centralized registries.