Yes, many Bitcoiners discount these types of things because they seem too outlandish.

As far as I am aware, you can hold physical stock certificates for certain companies only, but I have not done much research on the topic yet.

You can sometimes still achieve direct ownership with paper stock certificates or direct registration with transfer agents.

There's this thing called Direct Registration System (DRS):

- For firms that allow it (e.g., GameStop via Computershare, but rare for gov-embedded firms - which is what I own). Removes the broker, places you on issuer ledger.

- But just as an example, Palantir doesn’t currently offer retail DRS widely.

ChatGPT is surprisingly accurate on these types of topics. It is definitely something worth researching further.

Of course, they are going to have made physical ownership quite annoying most likely, but getting robbed is also annoying.