The reason that veLDO is an important step is that the Lido’s power structures need to be rebuilt.
May all of us, including the founders, have misassumed the growth speed of Lido. As a result, by the end of 2022, about 85% of $LDO total supply will be in circulation. As I have noted in another post, $LDO is distributed in a quite centralized way. veLDO will somehow solve this issue and restructure the power by setting up a much longer locked up time. The longer you lock up your $LDO, the more power you will have. This will give those community members, who came in later but have strong faith in Lido’s future, a chance to leverage their power by maximism their lockup time.
There is about 17% of the total supply left in the DAO treasury. By the end of 2022, that number will drop to 13~14%. Without healthy tokenomics, including economic models, it’s hard to imagine the treasury could have enough power to support a real long-term project.