Summary: Yivi, formerly IRMA (I Reveal My Attributes), is best understood not as just another identity wallet or EUDI-compliance app, but as a long-running implementation of Idemix-style attribute-based credentials with an unusually explicit trust-scheme architecture. Its core mechanism splits the stack into scheme managers that sign and distribute issuer and credential catalogs, issuers that sign credential attributes, client-held credentials that share a hidden holder secret across credentials, requestor-plus-IRMA-server session orchestration, and optional keyshare servers that add PIN and device binding while partially re-centralizing use. That makes Yivi a useful historical and structural comparison point for Self Protocol, ZKPassport, cheqd, Zupass, and EUDI-wallet-oriented stacks: it keeps selective disclosure, issuer admission, credential-catalog governance, device binding, and protocol interoperability as distinct layers instead of flattening them into one generic identity wallet.
What it does:
Lets users receive digitally signed attributes from trusted issuers in a mobile wallet and selectively disclose only the requested attributes to verifiers
Supports three main session types: issuance, disclosure, and attribute-based signatures on messages or documents
Uses scheme-manager-signed directory structures to distribute issuer metadata, public keys, credential definitions, logos, and optional keyshare-server configuration to apps and servers
Reuses a hidden holder secret across a user’s credentials so verifiers can confirm multiple disclosed credentials belong to one holder without learning the secret itself
Optionally uses a keyshare server that combines PIN checks, SE/TEE-backed challenge-response, and split-secret cryptography to strengthen device binding and enable remote blocking after loss or theft
Is actively positioning itself toward EUDI-wallet interoperability, multi-trust-scheme support, and additional credential formats such as SD-JWT VC while preserving a privacy-first posture
Key claims:
The scheme manager is the clearest control surface in Yivi’s architecture. The docs explicitly say the scheme manager signs and distributes all issuer information, issuer public keys, and credential definitions, and has exclusive control over which issuers may join the domain and what credential types they may issue.
Yivi is analytically useful because it keeps credential governance separate from credential cryptography. The Idemix selective-disclosure layer is one thing; the signed scheme directory, requestor-server session flow, and trust-anchor distribution are separate and visible layers.
The shared holder-secret design is important because it exposes a concrete answer to a recurring identity-wallet problem: how to prove multiple credentials belong to one holder without simply reverting to a globally exposed account identifier. Yivi’s answer is a hidden common secret embedded across credentials.
The keyshare server is an especially valuable tradeoff surface. The technical overview and keyshare docs say it strengthens binding through PIN checks, remote blocking, and split-secret cooperation, but they also say this reduces decentralization, introduces an online dependency, and leaks a limited amount of session metadata to the keyshare operator.
Attribute-based signatures make Yivi more than a login rail. The docs emphasize that users can sign messages with attached credential facts, which gives the corpus a useful earlier comparison point for later credential-presentation and signed-authorization systems.
Yivi’s current roadmap is also worth retaining. The 2025 EUDI-roadmap post makes clear that the team sees the existing IRMA protocol and Idemix stack as mature but insufficiently interoperable, and is planning a shift toward crypto agility, OpenID4VP/OpenID4VCI support, and multi-trust-scheme operation. That makes Yivi a good comparison point for standards-migration pressure in privacy-preserving identity stacks.
Yivi belongs in the active corpus because it preserves an older but still highly relevant decomposition of privacy-preserving identity: issuer admission, credential definition, selective disclosure, device binding, verifier session flow, and standards migration are all separate levers.
Whitepaper: No canonical standalone Yivi whitepaper surfaced in this pass. The strongest primary materials were the official docs and technical overview, the scheme and keyshare protocol docs, the current EUDI-wallet roadmap post, and the public repositories collected in ../whitepapers/yivi-primary-sources-2026-05-12.md.