Time-weighted governance is truly a double-edged sword. Taking LISTA as an example, the design of nveLISTA with a 52-week maximum lock-up period seems to be able to identify genuine participants, but in reality, it has already planted the seeds of centralized power structurally.

The most obvious issue is the severe imbalance in voting rights. Large holders who lock their tokens for dozens of weeks hold significantly more voting power than short-term participants, and small retail investors almost have no say at all. The intention was to filter for "loyalty" through time, but instead, it ends up firmly consolidating governance power in the hands of a few whales.

As the protocol develops to a certain stage, this problem will become increasingly apparent. When decision-making power is highly concentrated, flexibility diminishes accordingly. Proposals that favor large holders—such as unlimited incentives to boost certain liquidity pools—start to increase. This shortsighted approach actually harms the long-term development of the ecosystem.

In plain terms, this is a oligopoly trap that all veToken models face in their later stages. No matter how mechanisms are designed, as long as voting rights are linked to token lock-up periods, it inevitably results in a few large addresses maintaining control over the long term. This is a systemic issue, not a problem specific to individual projects.