Options are NOT too risky

Most people who say “options are too risky” don't know what they are talking about.

They’ve judged the instrument before defining or understanding the payoff.

Risk isn’t created by options.
It’s created by entering a trade without knowing where and how much you can lose, how fast you lose, or when the loss accelerates.

If you buy or sell something with an undefined payoff, like an outright option, you already have risk.
Calling that 1-leg trade “simplicity” doesn’t reduce exposure. It just removes the brakes.

If you bought the option then decay can kill you.  If you sold it, then you need to post huge margin and could potentially blow up your account if it goes wrong.

The answer is not  “I won’t use options” -  it is to fully grasp what you can do by trading multi-leg options strategies.  

You'll be shocked at how low risk and potentially high reward some of these things can be.  You just need to conquer the fear of the unknown and spend some time learning and observing people who do get it.

You don’t have to trade options.
But if you’re in markets, you are expressing a payoff shape whether you admit it or not.

The responsibility isn’t to be active.
The responsibility is to know what breaks your position and how much damage it does when it does.

If you can’t describe that in advance, the decision isn’t conservative.
It’s incomplete.  

Think about all the crypto HODLers who had no put options in their book recently.   Options allow us to tailor our risk.