Buying an option: known maximum loss, unbounded upside, and a position that decays every day it is right about nothing. Selling: premium received, a margin requirement that moves, and a loss that is not bounded by what you took in.
Framing them as two sides of one trade obscures how differently they behave over a run of trades.
The distributions are opposite
A buyer expects many small losses and occasional large gains. A seller expects many small gains and occasional large losses. Both can be sound; they demand different things from the person running them.
The seller’s difficulty is that the strategy looks excellent for long stretches, which encourages sizing up before the stretch that pays for it. The buyer’s is that the strategy looks poor for long stretches, which encourages abandoning it before the trade that justifies it.
What crypto changes
Premiums are higher, so buying is more expensive and selling pays more. Neither is an edge on its own — the premium is higher because the movement is larger, and whether it is too high is implied versus realised.
Tails are fatter. The move that hurts a seller happens more often than a normal distribution implies, for the leverage reasons in why crypto volatility clusters. That is a direct argument for defined risk when selling.
There is no close. A short option cannot be managed at an open, because there is not one — sizing a position you cannot watch applies with force to a position whose loss is unbounded.
The structural asymmetry
Crypto books are call-heavy, so the crowd is buying upside. A seller of calls is supplying what is demanded, which tends to mean better pricing — and standing in front of the move everyone is positioned for.
That is the trade, stated honestly: paid to take the unpopular side, at the moment the popular side is most crowded.