Passkeys and verifiable digital credentials are two transformative innovations in the digital identity landscape, arriving to market almost simultaneously and rapidly gaining adoption. Passkeys give us a seamless, user-friendly, and phishing-resistant credential at scale. Verifiable digital credentials, on the other hand, introduce a more decentralized approach to sharing identity claims, enabling individuals more control over what identity data they share with different parties.

As their adoption accelerates, an interesting question has emerged: could verifiable digital credentials replace passkeys for sign in, or do the two serve complementary roles in a broader digital identity ecosystem? This session explores the nuanced dynamics between passkeys and verifiable digital credentials. We’ll look at their technological foundations across usability, privacy, trust models, and ecosystems with the goal of answering whether passkeys and verifiable digital credentials are friends or foes—and how these technologies might collaboratively shape the future of secure, user-centric digital identity systems.