The two fees that decide whether a crypto card is worth using
Most crypto card reviews open with the cashback number. Eight percent on Crypto.com Obsidian. Five percent on Nexo Platinum. Two percent on Coinbase. Those numbers are true, but they are also the part that matters least once you spend a few months with an actual card. The two fees that decide whether a card is worth holding are the FX spread and the stablecoin conversion markup. Neither gets much attention on issuer marketing pages. Both are larger than the cashback tier on almost every card I have compared at sweepbase.net . The FX spread is not what the issuer advertises Most issuers advertise a 0 to 1 percent foreign transaction fee. That is the fee you pay for using the card in a currency different from the account currency. For a card denominated in USD used in EUR, the advertised fee might be 0.5 percent. What the issuer does not advertise is the FX rate they use. Visa and Mastercard network rates are public and close to the interbank rate. The issuer rate is usually 0.5 to 1 per...