1. The price of Bitcoin has been wildly volatile lately. And that type of commodity volatility affects Bitcoin's ability to act as a currency because prices are quickly driven out of whack. Even for ransomware such as CryptoLocker.
Here's a screenshot from a November 20th variant:
The price of decryption is now 0.5 BTC.
Just a few weeks ago, the going rate was two Bitcoin.
2. This is the wallpaper CryptoLocker sets:
While the text shown above notes the destruction of "your private key" — it isn't actually destroyed.
The site from which CryptoLocker can be downloaded also offers a "Decryption Service" that can be accessed after the countdown. (But you'll have to pay more.) Because the service isn't tied to a particular computer, a file must be uploaded in order for the service to match it with a key.
Uploading a file includes "Pac-Man" animation while you wait:
