I'm also struggling to understand this, but I guess the only way I can is by thinking of this as a CEO who decided to take a $1 salary + decided not to take any

I'm also struggling to understand this, but I guess the only way I can is by thinking of this as a CEO who decided to take a $1 salary + decided not to take any stock awards, but still wants to work at their company because they truly believe in the products they build, without any cash. The difference though from CEOs like Steve Jobs of course is the lack of equity. In this case it's like the founder of Litecoin is saying "I want Litecoin to evolve in a decentralized and organic way. It is meant to evolve without a singular influence, including myself". Cryptocurrencies are (supposed to be) decentralized so having a large stake/hash power/etc. probably goes against that philosophy.