Managing potentially concurrent transactions in a distributed database system includes: maintaining, at a first node, records of transactions executing on one or more nodes, each having a transaction state, execution of a first transaction at a second node including an operation for accessing a first data element stored on the second node and execution of a second transaction at the second node including an operation for accessing the first data element; receiving, at the second node from the first node, a list of transactions including any transactions executing on the second node and having a first transaction state at a time of initiation of the second transaction, and including the first transaction; determining that an outcome of the second transaction depends on an outcome of the first transaction based on the list; and suspending execution of the second transaction until after the first transaction is complete based on the determining.