> blockchain architecture for the ledger is one way you could absolutely guarantee that the authoritative record would only be eventually consistent with microsecond trades people actually place
There are architectures that can reach consistency in seconds rather than minutes. And transactions requiring seconds rather than microseconds could potentially represent a feature, not a bug.
As for things like dividends, with a distributed ledger, the company owning the stock could issue a dividend to everyone who owns the stock at time T, and meanwhile anyone who owns fictitious borrowed shares can take their claims up with whoever claimed to buy/sell a share without entering it into the official record.
Legal restrictions against certain transactions (such as mergers or acquisitions) wouldn't necessarily prevent the ledger from serving as a purely financial record. They'd just make it more difficult to use that record for shareholder voting and other questions of control.
There are architectures that can reach consistency in seconds rather than minutes. And transactions requiring seconds rather than microseconds could potentially represent a feature, not a bug.
As for things like dividends, with a distributed ledger, the company owning the stock could issue a dividend to everyone who owns the stock at time T, and meanwhile anyone who owns fictitious borrowed shares can take their claims up with whoever claimed to buy/sell a share without entering it into the official record.
Legal restrictions against certain transactions (such as mergers or acquisitions) wouldn't necessarily prevent the ledger from serving as a purely financial record. They'd just make it more difficult to use that record for shareholder voting and other questions of control.