Ironically the only way to beat the house edge is to play strategically to maximize your bonus, in which you need to bet high and cashout late. So in order to have +EV (safe in some sense), you need to play unsafe bets .
Not true (or ironic). The median crash point is 1.97x. So you just need to observe the other large bettors to figure out the optimal way to play each round. If they cash out over 2x, insta cash out and you'll hit the bonus more often than not. If they cash out under 2x (most do), you just need to cash out immed after they do. Since the house edge under 2x is <.5%, and the bonus 'house edge' is .99% (it crashes at 0x 1/101 times), as long as you are averaging a bonus >1.5%, you are playing profitably. It's very possible to get bonus' 2% and over on the regular cashing out around 1.2-1.5x, depending on how the other players are playing, assuming you bet around the same amount as the largest bettor.