Cardano Foundation spins out Veridian as an independent digital identity company to build the trust layer for the internet

The Cardano Foundation, the independent, Swiss-based not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing Cardano as public digital infrastructure, today announced the launch of its independent commercial spin-out Veridian. Led by Chief Executive Officer Thomas A. Mayfield, Veridian builds trust infrastructure that lets governments, organizations and individuals prove who is on the other side of a digital interaction, and what they are authorized to do, without a central database that can be breached or surveilled.

The internet was built without an identity layer. Identity fraud cost US consumers $27.3 billion in 2025, according to Javelin Strategy & Research, and personal data is routinely copied and shared without the consent of the people it describes. AI agents now act on behalf of people and companies, executing payments, stablecoin transfers and trades, with no reliable way to verify or revoke their authority. Governments have also started to legislate. In 2026, Utah became the first US state to pass State-Endorsed Digital Identity (SEDI) legislation (SB 275), mandating privacy-preserving identity controlled by the individual, and more than ten states are now observing its model.

Veridian will be seeking strategic partners and investors in 2027 that will be used to further expand the company’s efforts in the United States to serve state government demand, alongside its enterprise business in Europe, growing issuer network in Asia-Pacific, and to develop verifiable authority for AI agents. Veridian's shares have been natively tokenized as ledger-based securities under Switzerland's DLT Act. The tokenization uses the new programmable token standard developed by the Cardano Foundation and the Cardano community, making it the first such asset deployed on Cardano.

Thomas A. Mayfield, CEO of Veridian, said: “The internet shipped without a way to prove who is on the other side. That was a problem when it was only people. It is a far bigger one now that AI agents are moving money and data on our behalf. Veridian gives every person, organization and agent a credential that can be verified instantly and revoked just as fast, with no central database to compromise. We spent three years building that inside the Cardano Foundation. As an independent company, we can now take it to the governments and enterprises that need it.”

Veridian is built on KERI and ACDC, open identity standards already recognized by regulators, and its Chief Technology Officer, Fergal O’Connor, is a maintainer of the core KERI and ACDC libraries. The Veridian Wallet is live on iOS and Android, and the company has mapped all 142 requirements of Utah’s State-Endorsed Digital Identity implementation guide.

Veridian’s technology is already in use by AI agents. Masumi, the AI agent payment and identity network on Cardano developed by Serviceplan Group and NMKR, uses Veridian to give agents a verifiable identity that counterparties can check before any payment is made, and that can be revoked if an agent is compromised.

Frederik Gregaard, CEO of the Cardano Foundation and Chair of Veridian, said: “This is a milestone for the Cardano ecosystem. Veridian is built on open standards, it has a product in the market, and it is solving a problem that governments are now writing into law. The Foundation invested three years in getting it here. Spinning it out gives Veridian the independence to move at the speed its market demands, while we keep building together, including bringing verifiable identity natively to Cardano.”

Frederik alongside Nicolas Jacquemart, Chief Legal Officer of the Cardano Foundation, have been added to the Veridian board.