Ethereum’s big transition to a more energy-efficient framework that developers have been committing for years could be kicked down the road once again as they intend to postpone a so-called difficulty bomb that is designed to slowly boot miners off the blockchain.

A special code that is always been a part of Ethereum, the difficulty bomb rapidly increases the computing difficulty of mining underlying tokens, thereby making it impossible to do so. When the bomb goes off and is enabled to run its course, it’s a sign that the days until the so-called Merge – Ethereum’s switch to the proof-of-stake framework for ordering transactions – are numbered.

Developers settled on to delay the difficulty bomb on Friday post they discussed ironing out many bugs they’ve pointed out when they ran the software for Merge on Ropsten, one of the oldest testnets of the system. Though developers haven’t decided on a specific date for the Merge – Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum said it can take place soon as August if there are no major problems – the decision to roll back the difficulty bomb increases fears that the much-awaited revamp can take more time.