Eliazar on One Love Bitcoin: from waiter to bitcoin leader, and the story of Kaboom
Recorded in Panajachel in late 2022, Eliazar tells host Fred how a waiter's job led him to bitcoin and how an old generator came to mine on used cooking oil.
The episode
One Love Bitcoin is a podcast where host Fred interviews one person from each country about bitcoin. Season 3, episode 2 was uploaded in February 2023 and recorded in Panajachel, most likely in late 2022. A group of visiting bitcoiners was in town. Fred says that in about six months the project had already onboarded more than 65 businesses, and that shops were joining while he watched. One visitor, Eliazar says, had spent three days without touching cash.
From waiter to bitcoin
Eliazar says he worked as a waiter after the pandemic, when the country had been shut for seven months. In 2021 a guest named Patrick Melder came to breakfast wearing a Bitcoin T-shirt. Eliazar had only seen news about El Salvador on Facebook. Patrick made a transaction in front of him and told him to download Wallet of Satoshi.
Patrick came back, invited him to a meetup in the park and later asked him to work with the project. Eliazar says he knew nothing about bitcoin but was sure he could learn from books. In early 2022 he was sent to El Salvador for a week, with everything paid, and met the Bitcoin Beach team. When he came back, he says, his mind had changed. He started onboarding businesses in March.
How he explains it to a merchant
His pitch covers savings, bank fees and slow transfers, and he compares bank interest of a few percent with bitcoin's long term record. To the worry about price swings, he answers that merchants should save only a part, for example 20 percent, and he suggests starting with one to five quetzales a week. A dollar was about 7.5 quetzales. He also offers a safety net: when a customer pays, the merchant can call him and he converts it to quetzales right away. The project charges nothing and lives on donations.
The Kaboom story
Mining began in March with an S9 miner at the school. Eliazar says grid power in Guatemala costs about 17 to 20 cents per kilowatt hour, while Fred notes that profitable miners pay 5 to 7 cents. Bill Whittaker, who appears in the show notes, realized a diesel engine can run on vegetable oil.
Around June or July they looked for a generator in a town known for vehicle parts, probably Chimaltenango, and bought one that Eliazar says is 50 to 60 years old. They asked around on the main street, got about two gallons of used cooking oil, filtered it through jeans, including his own, and ran the engine on diesel first. Then they switched to oil. Eliazar says the only difference is that you start to smell like french fries.
Nobody wanted a loud engine nearby, so they rented a small parking or mechanic space by the river. Bill named it Kaboom. The setup is off-grid, and Fred says three machines were running. Eliazar calls it a proof of concept and says more fuel sources exist around the lake. Anyone can copy it, he adds, and the project shared the filtering details on its X account.
Schools and a call for help
Eliazar says Patrick first came to Guatemala as a missionary around 2012, met the owner of a school and kept working with her. After the pandemic he arrived with the bitcoin idea. For 2023 Eliazar planned to start work in schools and hold meetups, and he asked for more people to join, because the project needs more education.
His message to Guatemalans abroad is that bitcoin can cut the fees on money sent home. To bitcoiners he says: come to Guatemala, we need your help.
In their words
I am the walking ATM here.
We need more people to join this team because we need more education.
You just start smelling like french fries.
To you bitcoiners, I mean, come to Guatemala. We need your help.
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