Seems to me they will likely just open private channels with the large liquidity providers. Possibly public though if they want to earn regular routing fees

At scale I’m very skeptical that it keeps using swaps. Why would it? Costs nothing to build your own network built on USDT, hell, you could even allocate liquidity with zero cost, unlike BTC lightning. If it’s small maybe it’ll drive a bit more volume, if it’s large I’m skeptical. Maybe gets some USDT folks into wallets that can pay a lightning invoice, but I’m not sure that drives much lightning usage either, tbh.