This proposal, stimulated by recent discussion on lowering relay fees, would let miners adjust these relay fees via votes in the block header (versionbits).

A voting period of 1,008 blocks (~ 1 week) is proposed, with increases or decreases of 25% of the prior fee rate, but only if 75% or more of the votes are in favor of the increase/decrease. Otherwise the rate remains unchanged.

Relay fee is bounded between 1 sat/byte (today's rate) and 0.001 sat/byte, and hash voting can adjust the rate up or down within this interval.

You can find the full specification on GitLab: https://gitlab.com/freetrader/chips/-/blob/master/CHIP-2021-05_Minimum_Fee_Rate_Voting_Via_Versionbits.md

A discussion thread has also been opened on BitcoinCashResearch.org:

https://bitcoincashresearch.org/t/chip-2021-05-minimum-fee-rate-voting-via-versionbits/465

Review and feedback are much appreciated. Thanks!

I want to add a declaration to this publication: I am NOT submitting this proposal on behalf of BCHN, but as an individual. I expressly welcome competing proposals from anyone. Just wanted to make that absolutely clear. It's published under GNU Free Documentation License so anyone can take it and modify it to create their own proposal. For the purpose of reviewing, please don't hold back any criticisms - I'm not going to be offended because you take a different viewpoint and I'm actually going to be very grateful for pointing out any mistakes I don't know about already.