The high fees explained

Please do not close channels - the raise in Orville's fees (and a stop to rebalancing) is a temporary protective measure!

A few days ago my node force closed a channel to an LNBIG node for no good reason. Both nodes were up and running at the time. This transaction cost me more than 100000 satoshi - 36000 sats just for sweeping the 330 sats anchor.

Other nodes experience the same. Sudden involuntary force closes transacting into a high fee mempool.

The on-chain transaction fees are also high for no good reason - an inflow of non-creative and parasitic BRC-20 inscriptions are flooding the mempool and bidding the fees up.

As I write this, I see another potential force close hit in 3 hours. My node is up, and my peer’s node is up. I fear for the cost.

Until either the reason for these force closes is found or the price of mempool transactions comes down, I will not rebalance and fees will be high to discourage my peers from sending HTLCs through me. I apologise for not being able to be a good peer to you these days..