Would be mining necessary if double-spending was not a problem?

[uchalkql]

Hi,

Is mining only used to prevent double-spending and to generate new bitcoins, or there are other reasons?

Thank you!

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[BigBoom3599]

Mining is also used as a consensus algorithm, if there's a fork on the network every node will choose the longest chain as the winning one. This makes it expensive to vote on a fork (by pointing your mining power towards it). If there were only nodes as a consensus algorithm, it would be "cheap" to create many votes and thus easy for a bad guy to abuse.

[uchalkql]

Mining is also used as a consensus algorithm, if there's a fork on the network every node will choose the longest chain as the winning one. This makes it expensive to vote on a fork (by pointing your mining power towards it). If there were only nodes as a consensus algorithm, it would be "cheap" to create many votes and thus easy for a bad guy to abuse.

Thank you.
But why would we need blocks if there wasn't double-spending problem? Nodes would only contain the transactions. No blocks, no forks.

[BigBoom3599]

Mining is also used as a consensus algorithm, if there's a fork on the network every node will choose the longest chain as the winning one. This makes it expensive to vote on a fork (by pointing your mining power towards it). If there were only nodes as a consensus algorithm, it would be "cheap" to create many votes and thus easy for a bad guy to abuse.

Thank you.
But why would we need blocks if there wasn't double-spending problem? Nodes would only contain the transactions. No blocks, no forks.

Sure, but how would change/upgrade the protocol (Segwit for example)? There's no way to see how many votes a certain fork has without blocks.

[steven0021]

Mining is also used as a consensus algorithm, if there's a fork on the network every node will choose the longest chain as the winning one. This makes it expensive to vote on a fork (by pointing your mining power towards it). If there were only nodes as a consensus algorithm, it would be "cheap" to create many votes and thus easy for a bad guy to abuse.

Thank you.
But why would we need blocks if there wasn't double-spending problem? Nodes would only contain the transactions. No blocks, no forks.

No, blocks are needed for lots of things. It's the way bitcoin is made.
In the first place a node can have a different transaction from the rest of the network and won't have any way of knowing which transaction is conflicted for real if they don't download blocks.

[uchalkql]

No, blocks are needed for lots of things. It's the way bitcoin is made.
In the first place a node can have a different transaction from the rest of the network and won't have any way of knowing which transaction is conflicted for real if they don't download blocks.

Hi. Thank you.
They would need to update the transactions. The same way today they need to keep the blocks updated.

[steven0021]

No, blocks are needed for lots of things. It's the way bitcoin is made.
In the first place a node can have a different transaction from the rest of the network and won't have any way of knowing which transaction is conflicted for real if they don't download blocks.

Hi. Thank you.
They would need to update the transactions. The same way today they need to keep the blocks updated.

Not possible with the current implementation of bitcoin, sorry.

[Wilhelmus]

Yes of course it would ! Mining is still the way to perform any kind of transactions, and of course to create new blocks. Mining is the core principle of Bitcoin.