There are billions of transactions occurring all the time and the complexity of keeping all this in line in real time is not possible.
It isn't really all that complex. And if physical certs don't have to be dealt with, settlement is easier and faster.
Yes, the Meme Stocks did squeeze. And they really were shorted. What happened had in part to do with the extremely inexperienced people trading them.
I also wonder about something else: Robin Hood and--by now--a number of other brokers are selling "fractions" of stocks. Wanna buy a tenth of a share of GME? You can! That seems to be a feature HOOD customers, most of whom don't have a lot of money, consider valuable.
Now how does HOOD deal with the settlement of all those fractional shares? That seems to me to be genuinely complex.
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