You can't use USD bank transfers (you open yourself up to SEC and DoJ prosecution), you can't use gold (the logistics are near impossible), and you can't transfer assets (same story as above).
Crypto is unique in that it's both a virtual store of assets, and has infrastructure that can exist independent of western financial infrastructure
"In 2012, U.S. federal regulators hit HSBC Holdings with a $1.9 billion fine, along with $665 million in civil penalties, for significant lapses in its compliance and anti-money laundering (AML) systems. HSBC laundered over $881 million for Mexico's Sinaloa and Colombia's Norte del Valle drug cartels."
It provides no real benefit it and is a net negative to humanity imho
Wouldn't most Russians need money in Russia? What am I missing?
1. It is generally viewed as safer to keep large amounts of money outside of Russia. This is both because the Russian economy is bad, and because organized crime is a huge problem inside of Russia.
2. Russia and Russians have large shortages of things that can easily be bought outside of Russia. Once bought, they are fairly easy to smuggle back into Russia. But first you need to have money outside of Russia.
3. Russians like vacations. Getting yourself out of the country is easier than getting your money out of the country.
These scams are all still incredibly profitable despite relying entirely on the regular financial system. There is no reason to think ransomware would stop in the absence of cryptocurrency given that extensive infrastructure has existed and currently exists to "cashout" proceeds of fraud. And in the ransomware case it's even easier because the victim is willingly making the payment, and the attacker can just not give the decryption key if the victim trys to stop the payment in any way.
And yes, this scales. If you ever looked at the promoted stories on Snapchat a few years ago, you may have seen a user with the name "The Billionaire Gucci Master" living a very opulent lifestyle. That was all paid for with business email compromise money.