The Kaboom story: mining bitcoin with used cooking oil

What Kaboom is

Kaboom was a used-cooking-oil mining experiment in Panajachel. In the documented working setup, an old diesel generator burned restaurant oil to power bitcoin miners off the grid. In a video published in June 2025, Eliazar said the engine was not working. In November 2026 he said Kaboom has stopped: the generator worked, but the team could not cover the running costs. He called it a test, and a proof that anyone can mine with used cooking oil. A miner performs repeated cryptographic calculations to compete for block rewards; a small setup may share rewards through a pool. Patrick Melder described Kaboom in September 2022 as a way to reuse waste oil and help fund the community. The sources below document its history, not a currently operating visitor attraction. [Eliazar, voice answers, November 2026; Eliazar, video published June 2025: engine not working; Bitcoin Eco. podcast, 30:34; One Love Bitcoin, 36:35; Bitcoin Magazine, Sept 2022]

Why oil? The electricity bill

Eliazar says mining began in March, with an S9 miner at the school. The S9 is a less efficient model; Patrick said so in March 2022. Grid power in Guatemala cost about 17 or 20 cents per kilowatt hour, Eliazar says. The host answers that profitable miners pay 5 to 7 cents. Patrick gave a similar figure of 20 or 22 cents in March 2022. At those prices, Eliazar says, "now we can't do this." So the team looked for cheaper power. [One Love Bitcoin, 26:26; One Love Bitcoin, 27:08; Patrick Melder, Mar 2022, 18:36; Patrick Melder, Mar 2022, 22:05]

Bill's idea and an old generator

Eliazar credits his mining partner, Bill Whittaker, with the idea. Around June or July, most likely 2022, Bill pointed out that a diesel engine can run on vegetable oil. They went looking for a generator in what Eliazar's captions call "chimal tenango", probably Chimaltenango, a town known for vehicle parts. They walked all day and found a plain generator on the ground in something like a junkyard. Eliazar says it was 50 to 60 years old, but it worked on diesel. Bill bought it. They had no truck that day, so they came back for it. Patrick Melder later gave a different estimate: 30 to 40 years old in one interview, and 50 to 60 years in another. He also described adapting a centrifuge, while Eliazar says they filtered the oil through jeans. These are differing recollections, not a settled specification. A German public TV film shot in November 2022 says the idea came from Patrick Melder, while Eliazar's own account names Bill. [One Love Bitcoin, 27:57; One Love Bitcoin, 28:34; One Love Bitcoin, 29:50; One Love Bitcoin, 30:13; Patrick Melder on Kaboom origin and generator; Patrick Melder on engine and centrifuge; BR film Bitcoineros, Nov 2022, 6:08]

Filtering the oil through jeans

Next they asked for used cooking oil on the main street and got about two gallons. They did not know how to filter it. Filtering means passing the oil through cloth so that the solid bits stay behind. Bill called a friend, and the advice was to use jeans, like Levi's. Eliazar brought his own pair the next day. They started the engine on diesel, then switched to the oil. The only difference, Eliazar says, is the smell. [One Love Bitcoin, 31:21; One Love Bitcoin, 31:58; One Love Bitcoin, 32:27]

A loud engine and a name

Nobody wanted a loud engine nearby. Eliazar says Bill and a friend found a small parking place that worked as a mechanic's space near the river and rented it. When Bill saw it, he said Kaboom, and the name stuck. A video the team posted went viral on the Lago Bitcoin account on X. The host says three machines were running. Eliazar also says they first turned the engine on "right there in the school", so the order of events is not fully clear. A May 2023 video shows the engine running at a rented site and powering two miners on camera. CoinDesk also covered the project in September 2022. CGTN offered an outside view and noted that burning used oil still produces emissions. The same German film shows Kaboom in a backyard next to a car workshop. A neighbour, a musician, says they should fit a silencer so it is quieter. [One Love Bitcoin, 34:07; One Love Bitcoin, 36:08; One Love Bitcoin, 32:16; Reverend Hodl, running engine and two miners, May 2023; CoinDesk, September 2022; CGTN outside report; Reverend Hodl, rented site, May 2023; BR film Bitcoineros, Nov 2022, 4:24; BR film Bitcoineros, Nov 2022, 5:17]

What it earned, and who paid

The Get Based film, probably recorded in late 2022, says Kaboom makes about 230 dollars of bitcoin a month, about half an average monthly salary in Guatemala. That figure comes from the narrator, not from Eliazar. In the German TV film from November 2022, Eliazar says a miner makes about three dollars a day, since the machines do not run all night. That points to less than the Get Based figure. An April 2024 post by the video maker Adam O'Brien also says Kaboom can generate half of a monthly salary. We have no figure for what the oil, rent and repairs cost. In October 2022 the project asked for help for Kaboom through a fundraising page, and in November for small donations to pay its rent and internet. Eliazar says the project lives only on donations. [Get Based, 3:47; Adam O'Brien on X, Apr 2024; Lago Bitcoin on X, Oct 2022; Lago Bitcoin on X, Nov 2022; One Love Bitcoin, 33:42; BR film Bitcoineros, Nov 2022, 5:03]

A classroom and a tour stop

In the Get Based film Eliazar says the oil used to go to the garbage, the rivers or the lake. On a May 2023 podcast the guests said children from Centro Educativo Josué were taken to see how it worked. At Adopting Bitcoin in November 2023 the team said so too, and added that a volunteer with a mining background helped explain it. Visitors came too: a German TV crew, a demo at the Lago Summit in May 2023, and the Get Based crew. The German film shows Patrick presenting Kaboom to bitcoiners he invited from around the world. He says wind or solar power would cost too much, so this was the cheapest way to start mining in Panajachel. One guest says that on grid power it would lose money, but with free energy it makes a profit. [Get Based, 3:08; Bitcoin Eco. podcast, 31:38; Adopting Bitcoin 2023, 9:23; German TV post, Mar 2023; Lago Summit post, May 2023; BR film Bitcoineros, Nov 2022, 35:46; BR film Bitcoineros, Nov 2022, 36:12; BR film Bitcoineros, Nov 2022, 36:50]

Does it still run?

A May 2023 video shows Kaboom running and powering two miners. In January 2025, the engine would not start on camera, although two miners were connected. In June 2025 Eliazar said it was not working and that the team was now working on making diesel from plastic. So, as of Eliazar’s June 2025 update, Kaboom was not running. In November 2026 Eliazar said it has stopped, because the team could not cover the running costs. The earlier 2022 biogas plans for the wastewater plant were separate; see the project’s 2022 waste-to-energy plan. [Eliazar, voice answers, November 2026; Bitcoin Eco. podcast, 30:57; Bitcoin Eco. podcast, 31:15; Eliazar on X, 6 Feb 2024; Eliazar on X, 6 Feb 2024 (engine); Eliazar on X, Oct 2024; Bill Whittaker on X, Oct 2024; Repost on X, Jan 2026; Reverend Hodl, engine running, May 2023; Eliazar, engine did not start, January 2025; Eliazar, Kaboom not working, June 2025]

Not the town hall miner, not the biogas plan

Two other mining stories sit close to Kaboom. On March 25, 2022, the Panajachel mayor accepted a first donated miner, and a July 2022 post says the town hall S9 had been hashing since that day. In March 2022 Patrick described a plan to fix the cracked biodigester at the town's wastewater plant and burn its methane to run miners, which Cointelegraph covered in April 2022 as a biogas plan. Both are different from Kaboom, which burns used cooking oil in a generator. For the separate 2022 proposal, see the waste-to-energy plan. [Mayor accepts miner, 25 Mar 2022; Town hall S9 post, Jul 2022; Patrick Melder, Mar 2022, 16:58; Cointelegraph, Apr 2022; 2022 waste-to-energy plan]

In their words

The difference is that you start smelling like french fries.

They used to throw all this in the garbage, in the rivers or the lake, slowly killing our lake. Now, by mining bitcoin this way, we can save our lake.

Now we can't run it efficiently because of economies of scale.

Like I said, we live only on donations.

Numbers and dates come from the linked sources. When sources disagree we say so. If you know better, tell us and we will fix it.