Might be true. Victims of this ransomware are forcing them to pay in Bitcoin.
Yeah but the quantities of bitcoin are probably not enough to affect the price in a meaningful way. I would also point out that bitcoin prices have *not* been driven up lately. It's been just the opposite, and anybody would know this with a quick look at a 1 year bitcoin price chart.
There was a thread about this a couple years ago if I'm remembering it correctly. And as I said, whatever ransom these extortionists/criminals are asking, even if the victim had to buy bitcoin on the open market the number of bitcoins isn't enough to drive the price anywhere. I'm sure if they had to pay something like 100,000
BTC that might be true, but nobody is asking that for a ransom.
The thieves clearly do not influence the price especially recent price.
I hope it becomes possible to blacklist those addresses immediately once they are discovered. I wouldn't even mind if the addresses are frozen immediately via some sort of quick community consensus. If no one comes to claim the bitcoin, it can then be handed over to security agencies.
It would be good to have forum-like platform where those who feel their coins were unjustly frozen can provide proves for the community to decide whether to unfreeze the coins.
I guess this hasn't been considered because it could be abused in the future.