https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WannaCry_ransomware_attack
200,000+ victims asked for $3-600. Even if we assume 300,000 victims @ $600 each that is only $180M in a currency that trades a billion a day. I didn't check but I believe you are also assuming the hackers flooded the market with all that BTC at the same time. This makes no sense at all. The hackers are not trading for fiat on an exchange to get caught. They are more likely to either hold the BTC or try trading it privately for a privacy coin like XMR. If you really care to, you can check the ledger as their addresses are obviously known. Furthermore, the fact that people paying the hackers in BTC means they would have to buy that BTC in the first place, driving the price up.
Finally, you are ignoring the fact that BTC hit an ATH causing a dip as always. IMO these are the market makers and hedge funds trying to dip the market to cause panic selling so they can buy even more coins for cheap to further control the market. This theory is accepted in many crypto circles to explain this cycle. The WannaCrypt hypothesis is moreso seen as mainstream hyperbole directed against the crypto market.
Let's get some things straight:
The reported and infected machines (unique IPs) were over 500,000, out of which 250,000 were active, when I wrote my ETH/BTC article. At the moment, there are 400,000 infected machines, of which 220,000 are online. This means that a number of people (several hundred thousands) have paid or have performed clean reinstalls of their operating systems, hence the decline.
While several hundred million in BTC will produce a noticeable impact on the BTC market (although you claim it would not), it would actually have a HUGE impact on small cryptos, which are not traded in such high volumes. Exactly as you say, hackers will not go from BTC to fiat, but instead, will launder their cash through all possible cryptos, to hide their tracks.
I'm not sure why you claim that hackers need to buy BTC, this is nonsense? People are paying hackers with BTC, hence the increasing price.
Some of the hackers' addresses are known. Certainly not all. Otherwise why launder money using alt coins?
If you believe that the WannaCrypt theory is "hyperbole", then simply overlay the graphic (from the same site I linked) of the number of infected computers during the last month, with any cryptocurrency and enjoy.
Is WannaCrypt the only thing that changes the price of cryptocurrencies? Certainly not. Is it the most influential player in the last month? Oh, yes! Is this why Steem rose in value - most certainly!
Clarification - I believe I wrote victims would have to buy BTC, not the hackers. So we can agree on that :)
Re: addresses, I was referring to the addresses the hackers asked the btc to be sent to. I suppose these are only known if they were reported, so you are right we probably do not know them all.
We will have to agree to disagree though because at the end of the day, it is still a matter of opinion as we are both assuming we know what did the hackers with the funds.
We can logically assume (yes, this is not proof) that the ransom was in BTC, because it's the hardest to track and the easiest to launder, especially by coin mixing services and through unregulated exchanges, neither of which require user IDs.
What would the hackers do with the funds? Try to get them, at the end :)
Very true. But I wouldn't assume they'd be in any rush altogether :) Followed!