Hi, thank you very much for your help, sorry my technical knowledge is rather limited but I can try to explain my set-up and what I see:

Set-up:

Umbrel Bitcoin Node
Umbrel Lightning Node

Channel opened with ACINQ using Ride The Lightning 3 weeks ago.

2 weeks ago: power outage, my node went off line for 3 days.

I have then re-initiated all my set-up and downloaded again the blockchain and opened again my LN node with the seed that I saved.

Then I noticed that the channel had been closed (remote force close) and that there was a pending transaction on-chain that I believe correspond to the return of my funds from the channel previously opened with ACINQ.

Now Ride The Lightning is showing my on-chain balance as "pending chain balance", and I am not able to use those funds.

I can also see the funds on my Bitcoin wallet but I am not able to withdraw them.

I don't know what I can do to make these funds spendable again.

Thank you again for your help, very much appreciated.

Kind regards

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Hello,

I'm really sorry for all the misleading information.

I've been checking again what could have happened and realized that the issue with my stuck funds is not related to the closure of the LN canal but to a Loop out that I have performed just before by using Ligthning Terminal. ie. in order to send liquidity from one side of the LN channel open with ACINQ to the other through a server that sends back the BTC to my on-chain address (atomic swap LN to BTC if my understanding is correct).

This is the transaction: 46087e7a28056dc4e134007426b48dc4ca8d7898439644da33084628a0c517d0

I don't understand why the transaction is still presented as Unconfirmed and I'm not able to use my funds. What could I do to unlock those funds?

I'm so thankful for your help.

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This post found on the web exactly describes what happend to my funds:

"I was trying to open a new channel but I was not able due to not having enough BTC. I tough I had, but when checking thunderbub I saw I had a big amount pending. I was not sure why, but it is due to an initated but not confirmed Loop Out on lighting terminal. I think it will take long due to the very low fees I used.

Does anyone know A. If a loop out can be cancelled (I'm prety sure It cant be reversed) and B. Where to find transaction ID to check on current status on mempool?"

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I also found this, which might describe the situation and potentially the fact that I lost my funds:

"What happens if lightning loop transactions drop out of mempool?

I've looped out of a few channels a week or so ago. I normally use a UI but was having some issues at the time so used the terminal. So when I looped out the transactions were made with a really low default on chain fee (1 sat/byte). So they've been sitting unconfirmed for a while and probably will be until I start bumping fees.

I've noticed while these transactions are unconfirmed my channels do have the updated inbound capacity and I have been able to send payment to them (whereas they didn't have enough capacity before looping out).

What would happen now if the loop transactions dropped out of the mempool? Can that happen or will the lightning loop servers just keep broadcasting the transactions? Will they bump the fee?"

Somebody then answered: "Your loopd should automatically increase the fee over time as once the HTLC expires technically the loop server can steal your funds."

Did the loop server just stole my funds then?

Mod note: consecutive posts merged

I sorry, I don't know which history tab.

As far as I understand this transaction has been initiated by the other side of the Lightning channel who unilaterally closed the channel due to failure of my node. I have not initiated the transaction so I cannot increase the fees.

Please let me know if you have another idea.

Thank you very much

Thank you very much for your answer. As far as I understand this was an automatic return of funds on-chain further to the forced closing of a LN channel I had opened with ACINQ. I don't think I can increase the fees at this stage.

Actually, my understanding of the context of the transaction is not clear. I just know those funds are mine ;-)

This is the transaction ID: 46fecd345b06242984e57e0cc437cf3178cfa7a581a9d84e59dc7c742e6aa6e3

Thank you again

Hello,

I've been trying the lightning network recently with my own node. Unfortunately I experienced a power outage which turned off my node and my channel with ACINQ has been 'Remote Force Closed'. Now I have a pending on-chain Bitcoin transaction that remains unconfirmed for already 3 days. Could you please explain when I will be able to use again this UTXO. Sorry I'm still a beginner. Is this because the fees have been set at a very low level (1.02 sat/vB) so no miner is picking-up the transaction? Is there a way to speedup the transaction from my side? Is there a risk that the funds are being returned back to ACINQ?

Your help is very much appreciated. Kind regards

Doge is supported by the richest man in the world. He needs his coin and it's better to just pick one that is already quite decentralized instead of launching his own coin. Nevertheless there are still some whales that he needs to eradicate.

I can see it going to mars. What if we finance mars mission with Doge? I see positive impact on the price.

Maybe soon Chinese people will pay for their Starlink subscription using Doge so they can surf freely on the open internet with a satellite connection and bypass their CBDC.

I admit it remains a speculative investment but Mr Musk has his own community of believers.

Still we have the Bitcoin maximalists saying that everything should be built on top of Bitcoin which is the layer 0 of digital immutability and that all other projects launching their own tokens are useless and of empty value. I'm currently reading the second book of Antonopoulous and he says that Bitcoin is much more than payments. I also tough that the main use case was payments and store of value and that the fact that Bitcoin is not turing complete was limiting the use-cases. That's way I'm investigating on other use-cases currently under development.

Thanks for the websites. Indeed I was referring to companies whilst many projects are developed by anonymous teams and not necessarily through a old fashioned company.

I've read in the book of Andreas Antonopoulos that the payment use-case in bitcoin network is the initial use-case, same as the e-mail for the Internet.
 
It would be great to list here use-cases of Bitcoin other than payment and store of value, that could trigger the next wave of adoption.

I'm thinking of securing websites and social media (you pay some satoshis for each post so bots are pushed away as it becomes too expensive to run them for spam).

Kind regards

Hi thanks for your answers. I was referring to companies adding real utility to Bitcoin, not only investment products or ways of holding/exchanging the asset. I'm wondering to which extent Bitcoin is moving away from a pure speculative investment to more daily life use-cases.

I've found that on the web regarding the companies that I've listed in my first question:

“We’re building lightning walls where you can wrap your websites with a layer of digital energy to protect it from cybersecurity attacks,” MicroStrategy

I see another project called Nostr: "This self-driven monetization structure can have major implications on bots, spam and bad actors in general, both on the user level and protocol level. In the way that Bitcoin’s protocol discourages bad actors by nature of its very code, Nostr developers are actively working to bake security and honest action into its technology.

For example, some builders are looking into implementing costs assigned to relays, as a paid model that incentivizes honesty and reliability via proof-of-work models. In this potential design, for someone to send messages, they would have to post collateral in order to do so. This way, if there’s a bad actor, the reward could potentially be retracted as a consequence.

Combined, this would allow for a type of social network that focuses more on building instead of censorship or centralized incentive structures."

Remittances is also a use-case, El Salvador has been pushing Bitcoin on that basis.

As you mentioned, most crypto-companies want their own currency and sometimes I fail to see how Bitcoin will become the de-facto crypto-asset given that it seems that not many companies are working on the Bitcoin layer.

Hello! Do you have any information regarding companies currently developing products and services on top of Bitcoin? I've seen some news from Microstrategy (IT security) and The Block (social network Ametyst). I believe this would give even more usage to Bitcoin in the future.