That reality sounds pretty similar to what we have. Pretty much everything of consequence is on a 13-D, 13-F, 13-G , etc.

the reporting time might be too long for it to matter.

What is needed is instantaneous reporting.

The elite would hide behind walls of shell companies.

Can someone create a system that stores and parses all this company registration data to instantly dereference the person behind any shell corporation?

Not just “shell” companies. Berkshire Hathaway is hardly a shell company, but much of its money comes from investments. Same with most insurers.

Maybe shell companies should not exist. Or be fully transparent.

Shell companies, tax havens, tax loopholes... every law has a loophole and guess who makes the laws

No, because swaps are a thing. Ie a bank will buy a stock on your behalf in its name, write a derivative to you for the economics of the price return/loss on the side. This is very common today and has the effect of defeating disclosure requirements.

Do you mean something like a distributed, immutable, permissionless database that everyone can query?

Or a well-audited public ledger overseen by democratic institutions. Bonus if it doesn’t consume the electricity of an average nation to operate.

> well-audited public ledger overseen by democratic institutions

Yes, because democratic institutions have such a great track record of managing things like this

As opposed to what? The wonderfully secure blockchain-based alternatives where redress for fraud and theft is still handled by… those stodgy old institutions?

The alternative is providing a base network that is fully decentralised (and doesn't use a resource based proof system that is terrible for the environment).

Nation states and institutions can build on top of or integrate into this base network rather than building their own walled gardens. Long term this improves auditability and protects these institutions' CBDC networks from censorship.