> One way to solve is it to use not use timestamps, but use a monotonically increasing version number associated with a row that gets updated for every event/up

> One way to solve is it to use not use timestamps, but use a monotonically increasing version number associated with a row that gets updated for every event/update or whatever and is sent along with the event message payload. It is a concept that is known as vector clock. I suggest take a look at vector and Lamport clocks (named after Leslie Lamport), very useful in distributed systems using messages.