For instance I sent 197$ worth of btc from my blockchain wallet and in my ecoin account it is only worth 191$ and if I try to load the card it's worth something around 189$. Live rate at e-coin.io shows it's worth 197$ now. So basicaly I am losing 4-5% of my money when loading the card.
Is this your fee or?
Yes, they are playing with an exchange rate. Actually they are one of the most expensive ways to withdraw bitcoin. I have made a comparison last week:
Xapo | Wirex | Cryptopay | Spectrocoin | Uquid | Advcash | |
USD for 1 BTC | 911.38 | 889.62 | 883.85 | 906.7 | 907.59 | 898.33 |
Margin from Bitstamp rate | 0.61% | 2.99% | 3.61% | 1.12% | 1.03% | 2.04% |
Price and maintance of physical card for one year (in USD) | 20 | 29 | 27 | 21 | 28.99 | 14.99 |
Loading fee | 0% | 0% | 1% | 0% | 1% | 1USD |
Final amount for 1 BTC (in USD) | 891.38 | 860.62 | 848.01 | 885.70 | 874.06 | 882.34 |
The Bitstamp rate was 917.00 at the time of calculation.
So I would recommend you to use xapo or spectrocoin as it seems they have much better rate and fees structure
did you do your analysis in real time exactly at the same moment?
BTC exchange rate is a lot more complex than just looking at Bitstamp website. Firstly, not everyone works via Bitstamp, we don't, for example. Secondly, rates differ between different exchanges. Thirdly, when more volatile than usual, those differences in rates between various exchanges become even bigger.
So, really have to look into your methodology, but the conclusion of 4-5% being "lost" is grossly overestimated, that's certain
I am only speaking from my cases. Usually my blockchain wallet, google conversion and coindesk.com rate differ by less then 0.5%. When I load my card I always get 5% less then the amount calculated by those exchange rates. I gave you exact numbers based on 200$ load in my last post.