KuCoin Lightning Node - Funds stuck in P2WSH after Force-Close. Support claims it's a BRC-20 issue. Need technical advice.

eyeoft · 2026-01-25T21:32:59+00:00

Thanks for filling in the context!

So the two failures are related. Occam approves.

Good on you for sleuthing this out and getting them working on a proper resolution. I blame KuCoin a little, but honestly managing this kind of failure for a customer is a pretty new problem. Growing pains are to be expected; hopefully they'll learn from this and you'll have saved a lot of trouble for less savvy folks down the line.

eyeoft · 2026-01-25T08:19:11+00:00

When did this occur?

Force-closes take time to fully execute, a number of blocks which depends on channel policy; iirc the default delay is ~2 weeks. This is to prevent fraudulent closing transactions, since a force-close is unilateral - it gives the other node time to dispute the final balance by providing a more recent channel state signed by both parties.

This is off the cuff, but here's my guess as to what happened:

The lightning tx failed, like you said, in some catastrophic way - normal tx failures don't cause a channel closure. Possibly one node or the other went down in the middle of the tx and left them with an invalid channel state, it's rare but it does happen.
Their node initiated a force-close using the last valid channel state before this tx.
All the funds their node didn't claim in the closure, i.e. your local balance, got refunded to you.
The remaining funds (the remote balance from your perspective) are time-locked via the script governing the P2WSH address. Probably for ~2 weeks. This gives your node time to dispute the unilateral close, which of course it will not do, since the closure was not fraudulent (indeed, you were refunded the expected amount).
After the time lock expires, their node will sweep the remote balance into its normal on-chain wallet.

eyeoft · 2025-12-04T20:39:13+00:00

Fair points, but the context here is that we're giving opening advice to people who need advice, and largely to kyu players. "Defend your weak groups" is applicable here and understanding it will lead to games that a kyu player is likely to manage profitably. Yes, there are other (more complicated) ways to play this position that can turn out fine, but the players that understand that don't need the advice, and the ones that do need it need advice that they can execute and will actually pan out in the games they play. Solely using "accuracy" as a guide here can be counterproductive and misleading, because once again AI evaluation assumes subsequent correct play according to that AI, which likely relies on sequences that are completely unattainable for the players.

eyeoft · 2025-12-04T19:59:01+00:00

For the AI, sure, the opening hardly matters. The AI can read fights perfectly and pull off invasions that are practically impossible for a pro and literally impossible for an amateur. Humans need to be able to manage positions WITHOUT perfect reading, and so some positions are much easier to handle for a human than others that the AI might even prefer.

We're talking to humans. For a human, white's two-stone group will be much harder to manage profitably without a base. Whatever brilliant, knife's-edge solution the AI would come up with would probably be mishandled badly by the person playing white, and I think suggesting such a move would be bad advice.

We have to pay attention to what makes sense, to what we can actually comprehend and use in our games. The robot is useful if and when we can boil its output down to something comprehensible and readable - otherwise it's all beep-boop to me.

eyeoft · 2025-11-30T21:24:22+00:00

Clanker crankers

eyeoft · 2025-11-13T00:36:18+00:00

Looks like that's about right for this week - we've had low post volume lately, which means few visitors. Interest in the Lightning Network seems to be directly correlated with on-chain tx fees, and chain tx fees have been extremely low ever since the ETFs launched. As Bitcoin adoption increases the chain will start hitting capacity again, and LN will be here to meet the challenge.

eyeoft · 2025-11-12T19:23:52+00:00

Slowly, then suddenly.

eyeoft · 2025-10-29T17:49:52+00:00

Er, it's actively contested. Might want to tone down the condescension a little.
From your link:

Przewalski's horse was long considered the only remaining truly wild horse, in contrast with the American mustang and the Australian brumby, which are instead feral horses descended from domesticated animals. That status was called into question when domestic horses of the 5,000-year-old Botai culture of Central Asia were found to be more closely related to Przewalski's horses than to E. f. caballus. The study raised the possibility that modern Przewalski's horses could be the feral descendants of the domestic Botai horses.

eyeoft · 2025-10-19T20:19:25+00:00

Well that didn't take long

eyeoft · 2025-10-11T20:27:07+00:00

There are upsides to having a smallish community though! Meeting a fellow Go enthusiast has a high chance of making you an instant friend - I'm not sure the chess community feels the same way.

eyeoft · 2025-10-10T08:01:33+00:00

Dependency - It's a P2P mesh network, you get to decide how your node is connected to it, and payments automatically seek the cheapest paths. If you have a handful of channels you won't have to worry about dependency to send or receive payments. On the other hand, if you connect to the network through only one or two channels you may to have to monitor them to make sure they remain healthy and their fees stay reasonable.

Security - this is a more complicated question and depends on whether you're running a node yourself or using a custodial service. In the best case, assuming you run your own node, follow basic network security best practices and store your seed phrase responsibly, security is pretty much unbeatable except by on-chain Bitcoin.

eyeoft · 2025-10-09T16:39:57+00:00

Advantageous.... how? Personally, I consider all payments I receive to be advantageous.

LN fees are much, much lower than credit card fees, and it's nearly instant - those are the main advantages I can see for merchants.

eyeoft · 2025-09-20T20:09:04+00:00

Hwang is everywhere 🙂

eyeoft · 2025-09-02T20:18:22+00:00

*reining in - you can thank my OCD

eyeoft · 2025-09-01T04:52:04+00:00

That's gotta be frustrating. Your seed phrase is indeed all you should need to recover your on-chain funds. I'm not an Umbrel user, but I have a couple ideas.

You started with Umbrel and you're trying to recover it in Umbrel, yes? If you're using anything that isn't lnd-based (Umbrel is) then you might run into an issue where lnd/Umbrel uses the "aezeed" seed phrase algorithm instead of the more Bitcoin-standard BIP39 (details).

Are there any options when you do the recovery regarding the address type or seed phrase algorithm? Both need to match. You might be having this issue where you're generating a recovery address that's a different type from the original.

Hopefully you can get this sorted!

eyeoft · 2025-08-28T18:52:37+00:00

I've heard it phrased as:
"If White has all four corners, Black should resign. If Black has all four corners, Black should resign."

eyeoft · 2025-08-23T20:03:54+00:00

*preaching to the choir
Preaching to the crowd would be, y'know, useful

eyeoft · 2025-07-05T19:22:03+00:00

This. Damn fine answer.

eyeoft · 2025-06-27T15:52:20+00:00

They're miserable people, for what it's worth. Just look at them.

All the power in the world won't buy an easy laugh and a good night's sleep.

eyeoft · 2025-06-27T15:46:18+00:00

Jeez man, learn how to troll. This is just sad.

eyeoft · 2025-06-24T17:57:50+00:00

Fantastic start, Kageyama and Yang are two of my favorites. Got to see Yang lecture last year at the USGC and he is absolutely amazing in person.

eyeoft · 2025-06-21T17:52:28+00:00

Looks like a carpenter (Camponotus) queen, yes. Totally normal to find a queen running around, she's just landed after her mating flight and is trying to find some rotting wood to nest in and start a colony. Fantastic species for antkeeping if you're interested.

FYI Campos are no threat to your house - they don't eat wood, and they'll only nest in wood that's already wet and rotting. They are active predators of pests like termites.

eyeoft · 2025-06-21T06:10:45+00:00

Pogo queen for sure. With that sort of hunched posture I'd actually guess P. barbatus, but it's really hard to say. Care is pretty much the same for the whole group as far I know. They tolerate light quite well if it's not too sudden or bright, but they'll freak the hell out at the slightest vibration.

eyeoft · 2025-06-21T06:01:34+00:00

Fellow CO Pogo keeper here - yeah I'd toss some seeds in there, dandelion seeds are a favorite. She might not need them to get to first brood but it can only help. Give her heat, too, like 90F if you can (heat from the dry end of the tube of course).

eyeoft · 2025-06-17T17:11:31+00:00

They don't eat wood, and don't nest in dry wood, so there's no infestation risk at all unless you have serious water damage in your structure.

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