According to BTCGuild, the current PPS rate is 0.0000363.
On gpumax, the current price to buy per share is 0.0000572.
Using 20,000 shares, that would cost me 1.144BTC. In return, I would only get 0.726BTC from BTCGuild.
Why would anyone wants to do that?
I can see a reason to buy if the price to buy is quoted in USD. But if I am paying in BTC, and receiving in BTC, what am I to gain from this?
I am not going to go into detail about what most people don't seem to understand but I will tell you that it can become very profitable very quickly.
I am resurrecting this old post because I would like to understand this. It isn't the first time a question similar to @chungenhung's was brought up, but each time (as in @pirateat40's response above) the 'answer' was vague at best. I have read this entire thread, twice, and it still hasn't clicked with me. Perhaps I am naive; perhaps my mindset is in the wrong place.
My the basic question: why would someone buy shares at a rate greater than the current PPS rate? Why pay 1.2BTC for a service that returns 1.0BTC to the buyer? I can visualize some uses (testing a pool, for example), but I find it hard to believe this is what the bulk of the purchases are being used for. How does a buyer profit?
Obviously this is popular with the miners because they get paid more; I understand that. But how does it profit the buyers?
Would someone care to explain this with some concrete examples of what most people actually do with the purchased shares? Something more informative than 'I won't go into detail', or 'if you do not get it do not use the service'. Thanks in advance.