[doopy1]

Before bitcoin was still the early days of ransomware. It existed mostly as tech support scams. Now that the floodgates have been opened ransoms will go back to being high-risk western union payments and will be much higher. You can't put the cat back in the bag.

[giaour]

This is laughably naive. Western Union payments are high-risk for the ransomer, since they have to go pick the money up. Also, Western Union has pretty low limits on how much you can send ($10K for US->US transfers, less for international transfers). Getting a million dollars (a low ransom in today's ecosystem) via Western Union would require at least 100 pickups, each of which comes with a risk of getting arrested.

There is a reason ransom amounts skyrocketed when cryptocurrency entered the picture, and no, it's not because it was "the early days" pre-bitcoin.