Facing EXACTLY the same issue. As far as I can understand, ioncube causes issues because template's code is not pure ftp. This is the reply i received from ioncube helpdesk:

Its likely that the variables called by laravel no longer exist with the same value in the encoded script, normally we would exclude these specific values from obfuscation but this feature is not available with the online encoder.

Encoding with frameworks can result in some tinkering needed with the encoding process and we have had many projects successfully encoded for use with Laravel. If you would like to test the full Encoder you can grab a free evaluation here: http://www.ioncube.com/encoder_eval_download.php

Laravel must be reading the template files in order to process them. That may be done using a function like file_get_contents in PHP.

However, if the template files are encrypted by the ionCube PHP Encoder then that is not going to work. So you will need to replace the call to file_get_contents with ioncube_read_file if it is reading an encrypted template file.

That Laravel PHP file where you have made the change from file_get_contents to ioncube_read_file must be encoded using the ionCube PHP Encoder.

That PHP file must be encoded as otherwise there would be an obvious security hole where any file could successfully read and decrypt encrypted files using ioncube_read_file.

This link might be helpful, however i am not able to meet success on this. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/29070592/laravel-with-ioncube-and-encoding

Any help so far?