Overview
Pendulum Development is a UK design-and-build studio that makes websites, data systems, and apps for businesses and public-sector organizations. The studio describes itself as a small team of senior engineers serving enterprise, startup, and public-sector clients, bringing in specialist contractors when a job needs to scale1. Alongside that general work, Pendulum Development has built Cardano wallet tools and governance software, and it helps run the servers behind a Cardano stake pool2.
The studio was founded in 2015 and says it entered the Cardano ecosystem in 2020, starting with NFT tooling1. A Cardano client is Upstream2, a UK stake pool operator that also runs community events and workshops. A stake pool is a server that ADA holders delegate to, which helps secure the network and earns them rewards. Upstream's own site names Pendulum's founder as the person behind its pool operations and lists Pendulum as a partner that helps maintain its nodes, the computers that keep the pool running3.
Key Features
- A governance portal anyone can browse. For Upstream, Pendulum built Cardano Connect2, a website where people look up governance proposals, DReps (representatives that ADA holders can delegate their voting power to), stake pools, and the Cardano constitution4.
- Wallet login for WordPress sites. Pendulum's open-source WordPress plugin, also called Cardano Connect, lets a WordPress site connect to any wallet that follows CIP-30, the common standard Cardano browser wallets use to talk to websites, and add wallet, balance, and asset blocks to its pages5.
- Proof that a visitor owns a wallet. A companion service checks messages signed under CIP-8, a way for wallet owners to sign a short note, so a site can confirm which address signed it6.
- Hands-on node experience. Pendulum builds and operates bare-metal Cardano stake pools for Upstream, meaning pools that run on physical servers rather than rented cloud machines2. Public scripts from that work, published for the community by Upstream Stake Pool, cover installing a Cardano node, running a stake pool, and registering as a DRep7.
- Services well beyond blockchain. Pendulum Development also offers data systems, interface design, accessibility reviews against WCAG 2.2 AA (the international web accessibility guideline), SEO reviews, AI features, and dashboards for connected field devices8.
What to Expect
The Pendulum website reads like a portfolio. Its case studies cover websites and data tools for UK academic library groups, a connected-device product for home growers and farmers, and an environmental field-monitoring platform9, and one page walks through the Cardano work in detail2. The Cardano case study also lists token-gated mini games, puzzles that open when a visitor's wallet holds a certain token, which the studio built for Upstream's community summits2.
Organizations planning a project start through the contact page. The studio describes a four-step process of discovery, architecture, build, and support8. Clients deal directly with the engineers who build their project, with no account managers in between1. Pendulum can also host a finished site on managed plans that run on AWS, Amazon's cloud service, and it takes over sites that other teams built10.
Cardano developers can read the plugin, the signature-checking service, and the node scripts on GitHub. The studio's blog, Full Stack Waffle, mostly covers AI-assisted delivery, data, and SEO11. One post explains its governance work: with Upstream, Pendulum's founder has hosted Cardano workshops across the UK, including a London workshop that fed into the 2024 Cardano Constitutional Convention12.
