To make a long story short, and because I'm not an expert: A similar thing kinda-sorta happens behind the scenes with retail investing anyway. When you buy and sell stocks online, often the real ownership of the stock, in the stock exchange, doesn't change hands. Instead, the stock is exchanged among customers of the same platform.
IE, if you buy and sell stocks on ETrade, most of the time the ownership with the dow doesn't change, instead the ownership within ETrade's database changes.
IE, if you buy and sell stocks on ETrade, most of the time the ownership with the dow doesn't change, instead the ownership within ETrade's database changes.