White Paper
Minyma End-to-End Encryption Overview
Minyma is designed so message and attachment contents are encrypted on sender devices and decrypted on recipient devices. The service participates in delivery, but it is not intended to hold the private keys required to read plaintext message content.
What Minyma does today
The current product uses device-based cryptographic identity, signed prekeys, one-time prekeys, AES-GCM payload protection, and a Double Ratchet path for forward-secret direct chats.
The relay supports device registration, prekey distribution, message queueing, push delivery, and attachment relay. That means Minyma can operate as a real messaging product without claiming that the service disappears entirely from the delivery path.
What is end-to-end encrypted
- Message text
- Message edits and deletes carried in encrypted payloads
- Receipts carried inside encrypted message payloads
- Attachment contents
- Attachment keys shared inside encrypted message payloads
What the service can still observe
Like most practical messengers, Minyma does not hide all metadata today. The service can still observe which user or device is sending, which user or device is receiving, timing and message frequency, ciphertext sizes, push registration and delivery timing, and limited attachment transfer metadata such as encrypted size, upload and download timing, and delivery state.
The accurate public claim is that Minyma protects message and attachment content from relay-side plaintext access while continuing to reduce relay-visible metadata.
How the current system works at a high level
- Each device holds long-lived local identity keys.
- Each device publishes signed prekeys and one-time prekeys to the service.
- A sender fetches a recipient device's prekey bundle and derives a shared bootstrap secret.
- Direct chats can then move into a Double Ratchet mode for stronger forward secrecy.
- Private key material stays on user devices rather than on the relay.
Important honesty note
Minyma already has real end-to-end encryption structure in the product, but the protocol is still evolving. The strongest public description today is real E2EE for message and attachment content, paired with honest language about metadata, protocol maturation, and external review status.
- Minyma protects message content end to end and continues reducing relay-visible metadata
- Minyma should not currently be described as post-quantum
- Independent review remains part of Minyma's security roadmap
- Minyma should not currently be described as identical to another mature messenger
Current hardening themes
Current hardening work includes reducing older direct-session fallbacks, strengthening notification privacy, publishing deeper protocol documentation, preparing for independent review, improving group-message cryptographic design over time, and researching post-quantum migration options for the future.
Short public description
Minyma uses device-based end-to-end encryption for message and attachment content. Messages are encrypted on sender devices and decrypted on recipient devices. The relay stores and forwards ciphertext and routing metadata, but does not hold the private keys required to read plaintext. Direct chats use signed-prekey bootstrap and a Double Ratchet implementation where available.