Wallet is not really the right way to think about it. Stacker News, Fountain.fm, etc, are all "wallets" but in reality they are all just transaction sets with the master private key being me.
I'm not surprised ... on the other hand I'm quite surprised: at these levels for most people it isn't really worth it for people to have more than one channel open. And everything below 3 channels does not really improve connectivity of the Lightning Network. We are still early if that's the state in enthusiast circles
Don't ask how many sats somebody have in his wallet (NEVER do that).
But ask how many LN wallets is using daily or weekly... each one with a certain amount of sats, enough to spend.
A LN wallet is not meant to be filled with a large amount of sats.
Onchain is your safe, your savings bank, is the rampon/off for your LN wallets.
A LN wallet is your spending pocket.
Literally your pants pockets. And you can have many pockets (LN channels).
onchain wallet is only for long term holding.
BTW...
When you empty your pants pockets of money, do you also throw away your pants?
Or you just put more money into your pockets?
Unloading into your safe (onchain wallet) from your pants pockets (LN channels) the surplus of money that you are not going to spend, is a simple easy natural operation.
Same when you have empty pockets: you load them from your safe (onchain) with the amount you need to spend in a certain period.
For this load/unload of LN channels you will use the swap services, that will move in/out the sats from/to a LN channel. And those LN channels you do not close them, you continuously use them, as much as you can.
I'm asking about range, not an exact amount, and it's your hot wallet balance, not your savings, so I think it's totally fine to ask such a question.
You are right that it's like as "how much cash is in your pocket approximately"?
It tells nothing about your welfare or anything, just how much you could spend instantly.
Mostly agree, except I think checking/debit account is a better analogy than pants pocket cash. Spending over LN requires pre-funding a channel, and it only works when your peer is online.
Pocket change is more like a single-sig (probably mobile) wallet, because it’s a bearer instrument with no counterparty/peer.