Bitcoin Lightning force closes, which settle channels unilaterally rather than with both parties' agreement, carried median required fees of 925 satoshis per channel in a 2026 cohort and imposed a median 2.5-day contractual wait before the broadcaster's balance became eligible for sweeping. The findings come from Saurabh Kumar of Bitcoin Data Labs, whose November 12 preprint examined 973,581 channel closures from January 2018 through October 31, 2026, including 523,815 force closes. The detailed 2026 cost cohort covered 14,435 public force closes through October 4, compared with 197 satoshis for cooperative closes and a 4.7-to-one median fee ratio. Under BOLT 3, the broadcaster's balance is placed in a delayed output called to_self_delay, allowing the other party to penalize use of a revoked channel state. The reported delay ends when the funds become sweep-eligible, not when they arrive in a wallet, and does not measure ordinary Lightning payment speed. The study's full-period median wait was 1.7 days. Kumar calculated a 1.2% 2026 break-even annual return, versus 16.7% across the full period, to illustrate when the cost of locked funds equals force-close fees. The analysis excludes private cooperative closes, splices, and unclassified simple-taproot spending details, while confirmed-chain data cannot reveal failed or replaced fee bumps. The findings indicate that operators must assess access to capital, not just transaction fees, when evaluating unilateral channel exits.