Hi @amyf, sorry to respond so late. That doesn't seem normal. Usually there's a loss when moving and when trading. Most places the trading loss is around 0.2% or so, very minimal (2 cents, with your $10 example). The transfer fees depend on the coin; with Bitcoin, I have heard it can be as high as $7 so that might account for your experience.
You sent it to Coinbase, so you could look at their website, and click on that transaction. You could then view that transaction at http://blockchain.info, to see more details about the transaction, which includes the fee.
Of course, that's the blockchain fee; blocktrades.us might have their own fees, I'm not sure. But, it sounds worth investigating, if you lost 90% of your investment money, buying into your investment! :( When I buy in at Coinbase it's usually around 5%, 10% at most for obscure coins (i.e., the loss from Coinbase, transfer, and exchange).