LDO is an ERC20 token that gives the ability to participate in the governance process of the Lido DAO. The Lido DAO decides on some key parameters of the liquid staking protocols through the voting power of governance token (LDO). By holding the LDO token, one has the ability to vote within the Lido DAO.
Lido DAO goals are:
Providing an alternative to self-staking or staking on exchanges and other semi-custodial and decentralized applications.
Allowing users to earn staking rewards without locking their crypto assets.
Enabling users to stake any amount of assets without any minimum requirements.
LDO is the native utility token used within the ecosystem. The token plays an essential role in governance and it grants voting rights to the members who get voting powers proportional to the amount of LDO tokens they stake on the protocol.
The Lido DAO is responsible for governing Lido’s liquid staking protocols. The DAO sets key parameters like fees for the protocol, covers the costs of protocol development and upgrades, appoints and removes node operators, and more.