A forced Bitcoin Lightning exit can be cheap and still leave you waiting days

When a Bitcoin Lightning channel closes without both parties agreeing, the fees can be small but the wait can stretch for days. In a 2026 sample of public channels, forced closures cost a median 925 satoshis per channel across both parties, while the party that initiated the closure waited a median 2.5 days before it could reclaim its own balance, according to Saurabh Kumar's November 12 preprint. Kumar, of Bitcoin Data Labs, reports 973,581 channel closes from January 2018 through October 31, 2026, including 523,815 force closes.