It's not really a serious proposal, but as I see it there are four groups involved. 1) Ransom-ware criminals -- they are already breaking the law and are subje

It's not really a serious proposal, but as I see it there are four groups involved. 1) Ransom-ware criminals -- they are already breaking the law and are subject to criminal enforcement 2) Irresponsible businesses who fail to secure their critical systems 3) Hardware and software vendors who don't care enough about security because #2 doesn't care 4) Presumably innocent cryptocurrency users Banning paying ransoms adjusts the incentives for #1, #2, and #3 in beneficial ways and leaves #4 alone. I realize this wouldn't work in practice, so it's not really a serious proposal.