Doesn't work. The moment someone exposes the game the affiliate marketer will have his affiliate account closed by whichever company or network they're trying to work with.
Perhaps an Ethereum program could do it, but then it might be a good idea to set up a second Ethereum network for anonymous use over darknets.
You don't need an actual company to accept Bitcoins. You don't even need a PO box or a telephone number. Just a computer connected to the internet.
Note: the point of the affiliate marketing is to make your an affiliate of /spreading the infection/ not pumping some third party product.
Could you explain very slowly how this would work in your mind? Who is paying the money, and who is receiving the money?
a. publisher b. affiliate network c. person selling a product
You are saying that the affiliate network would block the publishers for distributing malware. Yes, that's true. But what is stopping someone from creating another affiliate network? That would replace the actors with the following:
a. malware distributor b. illicit affiliate network c. malware publisher selling key
In this case, the "product" is the key to decrypt the files. The network could be anyone. It could even be the same person who wrote the malware.
I imagine that anyone who is willing and skilled enough to be a malware distributor would rather just do the whole thing himself, ie code the malware himself and collect himself.
The benefits are that the creators get more people to hero then spread their blackmail.
Call it affiliate, call it MLM, call it resellers, call it a distributed crime syndicate. Same thing.