If one transaction lands at one provider just before the midnight-synchronization starts, but then many other providers soon after midnight, if the one that landed before midnight a shoe-in to win, on timestamp alone?
Every transaction has a timestamp, providers take it into account instead of their local time.
OK, let's say a transaction 'A' arrives at one provider just before midnight, with a 1-minute-before-midnight timestamp. The synchronization process starts. Just after midnight, a conflicting transaction 'B' arrives at many providers, with a 2-minutes-before-midnight timestamp.
Is the more important factor B's earliest timestamp, the fact that only A was at any provider before the day's sync began, the relative computational power of the providers, or other arbitrary lags in the synchronization?
Also, how do providers demonstrate their relative computational power?