Over the past year, we have been working on a set of tools to issue, display, and verify digital credentials using the Bitcoin blockchain and the open badges specification. Today we are releasing version 1 of our code under the MIT open-source license to make it easier for others to start experimenting with similar ideas. In addition to opening up the code, we also want to share some of our thinking behind the design, as well as some of the interesting questions about managing digital reputations that we plan to continue working on.

Source: What we learned from designing an academic certificates system on the blockchain