According to CoinDesk, CarnationFM, a music-focused radio FM, was created by five hackers and a mentor at EthBerlin 2024. This innovative project allows songs to act as a transport vessel for hidden messages, providing a defensive, decentralized, and encrypted communication tool for private messaging that safeguards anonymity.

Emerging from EthBerlin 2024, CarnationFM won the award for Best Social Impact. The project aims to create real-world use cases that prioritize privacy, especially in the aftermath of the Alexey Perstev verdict. Perstev, a co-founder of Tornado Cash, was sentenced to 64 months in prison in May for his open-source mixer's role in enabling North Korea’s Lazarus group to launder millions in crypto. This verdict has caused concern within the decentralized community, suggesting that coders could be held responsible for the misuse of their code.

CarnationFM's name, “Broadcast for a Liberated Future,” is inspired by Portugal’s Carnation Revolution, which ended Europe’s longest-lasting dictatorship 50 years ago. The revolution began with the broadcasting of two specific songs through a radio broadcast, marking the start and confirmation of the action. The carnation flower became a symbol of the revolution, as civilians placed carnations in the muzzles of guns and on soldiers' uniforms, celebrating the end of the dictatorship.

The decentralized nature of CarnationFM is achieved through Swarm, a decentralized data storage solution operating on the Ethereum blockchain. Anyone can listen to or download the music, but only those with a public key can see the encrypted message. The methodology, available on GitHub, requires the key to be sent to the receiver beforehand along with the time the song will play. The music files have underlying encryption that can hide messages up to 250 kilobytes per minute.

The creators of CarnationFM are open to further developing the product but are limited by resources and are seeking support. They are researching how to apply similar encryption to sound waves, potentially allowing for the encryption of Morse code and sharing more information without downloading. They are also exploring the application of this technology to videos, which could be uploaded on platforms like YouTube or used in television broadcasts.