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Close a Lightning Channel

warning

Closing a channel is final and cannot be cancelled.
Only do this if you're closing your shop or you're doing a workshop.

info

Ambrosia must be running in order to close the channel.

Prerequisites​

  • The channel ID you want to close
  • A valid Bitcoin on-chain address
  • A suitable fee rate (in sat/vbyte)
info

You can see current fee rates using a Bitcoin block explorer like https://mempool.space/

warning

Fee rate is for the child's feerate, set a higher value for an effective parent+child fee rate.
All funds will be sent to the on-chain Bitcoin address you provide.

Step 1: Open a terminal and ensure phoenixd is running​

For Linux/MacOS​

Verify that the Phoenix container is up:

docker ps

You should see a container named phoenixd.

Step 2: List your channels​

For Linux/MacOS​

List all channels:

docker exec -it phoenixd /phoenix/phoenix-cli getinfo

Copy the channelId of the channel you want to close.

For Windows​

Open Docker Desktop and click on Terminal (bottom right corner), then:

docker exec phoenixd phoenix-cli getinfo

Copy the channelId of the channel you want to close.

Step 3: Close the channel​

For Linux/MacOS​

Run the following command:

docker exec -it phoenixd /phoenix/phoenix-cli closechannel \
  --channelId=<CHANNEL_ID> \
  --address=<BITCOIN_ADDRESS> \
  --feerateSatByte=<FEE_RATE>

For Windows​

Run the following command:

docker exec phoenixd phoenix-cli closechannel \
  --channelId=<CHANNEL_ID> \
  --address=<BITCOIN_ADDRESS> \
  --feerateSatByte=<FEE_RATE>

Result​

If successful, Phoenix returns the transaction ID of the closing transaction:

758b3df67c62c9cd9ebbde1ff6eaadc1c51f94d5b1a3efb2548236b9a6f1c659

You can track this transaction using a Bitcoin block explorer like https://mempool.space/

info

The channel status will display as 'Negotiating' even after a succesful closure, this is a phoenixd bug, the channel should be closed after 6 confirmations and sats won't be available since they were sent to an on chain address.