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Partial Order

Definition

Partial Order refers to a state where events or transactions in a distributed system have a defined sequence relative to some other events, but not necessarily to all events. This means that while some operations must occur in a specific order, others can happen concurrently without affecting the validity of the system’s state. It allows for greater parallelism and scalability compared to total ordering, where every event has a strict, globally defined sequence. This concept is fundamental to certain decentralized exchange designs.