Having your wealth held in a form that can be instantly, irreversibly transferred in a way that can be done anonymously by skilled individuals is an added risk.

Some of the same features that people celebrate about crypto make it uniquely advantageous to people looking to execute these attacks.

Yes, we know that in theory attackers could go after some random high profile person and force them to go through bank transfers and then go through all of the additional steps of washing that money through international banks in a way that hopefully cleans their trail sufficiently.

But anyone planning an attack like that would be drawn to a target that already has their money held in a digitally transferable format that is infinitely easier to launder using the modern array of cryptocurrency tools.

Ask Kim Kardashian about that. I don't think she had anything to do with crypto.

Most businesses turn their cash over to a bank at the end of the day, so any ransom cash that the kidnappers spend or deposit in a bank is tracked very quickly.

Of course crypto can be tracked as well, but financial institutions are required to follow authority instructions and freeze and reverse assets that may belong to kidnappers. In most crypto there is no authority to reverse the assets.

You can have a system where ids of all wallets containing stolen crypto are kept in a database and nobody does accepts any payments from these addresses. However many crypto advocates are strongly opposed to such a system.

So in conclusion, kidnapping of law abiding citizens for ordinary money has not been happening in the us for a while because the fbi had made it clear that it does not pay. But crypto is a whole other business.

It is hopeful that for all current cases the perpetrators seem to have been caught. But i am afraid there may be more attempts before criminals are convinced it does not pay.

Given the finite quantity that many cryptocurrencies can create, I'm curious if another 'attack' will become popular at one point: destruction.

If only x units / tokens and be generated, if you can destroy or otherwise make inaccessible some quantity, then the ones you already own should become more valuable. So perhaps in the future we'll find the kidnappers change from demanding a transfer to demanding destruction, so the perpetrator's own holdings grow in value.