What is the difference between holder binding and device binding?

Holder binding ensures that a digital identity or VC can be attributed unambiguously to a particular subject, usually by tying it to a cryptographic key or secret of the rightful subject, because the issuer is not present at use; device binding ensures the identity or VC is bound to one device and cannot be transferred, but does not guarantee that the user of the device is the holder.

In practice the two are combined. Synonyms: holder binding, user binding; device binding.

Go deeper:

• RFC 9901 Selective Disclosure for JWTs (SD-JWT) — the standard: hashed claims, disclosures and the key-binding variant.