Lightning Force-Close Rate
Percentage of unilateral channel closures (force-closes) relative to total closures. Spikes indicate network stress - node operators going offline, software crashes, or extreme on-chain fee environments forcing emergency closures.
What is it?
This chart measures the percentage of Lightning channel closures that are unilateral (force-closes) relative to total closures (force-closes + cooperative). A force-close occurs when a node operator unilaterally publishes the channel state on-chain, either because the counterparty is offline or in case of dispute. Data comes from a self-hosted full node Bitcoin with on-chain transaction parsing, providing the real force-close vs cooperative close breakdown across the full Lightning Network history since 2018.
How to read
Two series on the chart: (1) force-close rate in % (left axis, gold series) - around 15-25% is normal, 35%+ marks stress, 50%+ a systemic event ; (2) total daily closes count (right axis, red series) - contextualizes the rate: 30% of 200 closes (≈60 force-closes) is more meaningful than 30% of 20 closes (≈6 force-closes). Enable BTC price overlay to correlate spikes with market regime.
Key zones
Normal zone: 15-25%. Attention zone: 25-35%. Stress zone: 35-50%. Critical zone: >50%. These thresholds are based on historical observations and may evolve as the network matures.
What to observe
Isolated force-close spikes are noise (normal maintenance). Look for sustained upward trends or batched spikes (multiple force-closes in the same block = likely a large operator in trouble). Correlation with L1 fees: when L1 fees spike, force-closes increase because maintaining channels becomes too expensive.
Historical context
The most notable stress episodes coincided with fee spikes of November 2023 (Ordinals/inscriptions) and April 2024 (Runes). The force-close rate temporarily exceeded 40% during these periods. In normal operation, the rate has steadily decreased over the years thanks to protocol improvements (anchor outputs, CPFP). 📌 Methodological note 2026-05-18: from this date, Trinity uses a different data source (self-hosted Bitcoin full node currently syncing the full history, several weeks to index). Until that indexing completes, the force-close vs cooperative ratio is computed in degraded mode (proxy based on net channel count variation). Recent values (post-2026-05-18) reflect this approximation. Trend analyses remain valid; absolute comparisons pre/post-2026-05-18 must account for this methodological discontinuity.
Expert notes
Detection is done via P2WSH script patterns with CSV/CLTV timelocks. Accuracy is good for force-closes (distinctive scripts) but cooperative closes are indistinguishable from other 2-of-2 P2WSH spends, which may slightly overestimate the ratio. Academic research (MDPI 2019) confirms that ~75% of P2WSH transactions are Lightning-related.
Common mistakes to avoid
A force-close is not necessarily 'bad' - it is a security mechanism built into the protocol. It is the RATE that is informative, not individual occurrences. Do not confuse force-close with loss of funds - in a force-close, both parties recover their funds (with a delay for the initiator).
Programmatic access
REST API
curl -sS \
'https://api.trinityinsights.io/api/v1/onchain/metrics/ln-force-close-rate/data?timeframe=90d' \
-H 'X-API-Key: $TRINITY_API_KEY'MCP server
{
"tool": "get_chart_value",
"metric_id": "ln-force-close-rate",
"timeframe": "1y"
}Required tier: pro. See the pricing grid for the tier list and the MCP documentation for multi-client configuration.
Related metrics
Institutional disclaimer
Trinity Insights is an educational and analytical tool. The metric above does not constitute investment advice. Trinity Insights is not a Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) registered under MiCA Regulation (EU) 2023/1114. See the full disclaimer.