Augea Research · 2026-04-15
Buying crypto by card costs far more than bank transfer
12.00x
Median card premium across exchanges offering both payment methods
$52.94
Largest same-exchange gap on a $1,000.00 BTC buy
20.00x
Widest documented card-to-bank ratio
10/10
Tracked countries where bank beat card
Card was more expensive than bank transfer in every tracked country and across nearly every same-exchange BTC comparison.
21 exchanges·10 countries·snapshot-backed·CC-BY-4.0
How broad is this?
This is not one outlier: in same-exchange BTC comparisons in the US, card costs more than bank on 20 of 21 exchanges that offer both payment methods, and the cheapest bank-transfer option beats the cheapest card option in 10 of 10 tracked countries.