~snip~
Is this true, or do I not actually buy at $0.50, even though it is listed as $0.50. But my act of buying forces the price to go to $1. So I'm still buying at $1? But that wouldn't make sense because
if someone else bought it for sure, they would be buying at $0.50. ~snip~
In this case, what happens is:
When you sell tokens at $1 for 1000 tokens, other people who have the same tokens panic, and sell theirs too, bringing the price down to $0.5.
When you buy back those tokens at $0.5 (for 1000 tokens) you only spend half of your profit, which is $500. And yes, you have a $500 profit in your wallet.
But the price won't go up just because you buy it back; it takes other buyers to panic buying, so the offer goes high, and bring it back to $1 per token.