Fees paid by lightning network operators have drastically decreased over the past year (anomaly notwithstanding).

While force closes tend to get the most attention, channel opens pay more fees to miners in total than all channel closes.

Lightning channels are clearly solving a problem because the urgency to start new lightning channels is greater than the urgency to close them.

(w/o FCs)

(w/ FCs)

#lightningnetwork #statistics #bitcoin