Is there any news that files are really being decrypted after the ransom payment?

Which block explorer the malware is checking to confirm payment?

No but it does create market caos, just because more coins are being exchanged.

The total amount paid right now is less than the reward mined from two new blocks so.. no.
The sum is pretty tiny and I doubt it will grow too much in the next days.

It would be interesting to hear from people that have already paid if they did receive the key from the "hackers".

Wanna Crypt could have been desastrous for bitcoin's perception outside of our echochamber. Let's hope for Brad Smith's ruffle (MS Chief Legal Officer) against the code origins has some effect. Seriously you dont want to get dragged into a silly cyberwar (hitting hospitals in the UK mostly) just for fun'n'profit.

The backsleash from society would outweight any two block rewards!

And watching the top speed at which 22nd year ole hacker disarm that worm there will probably only weeks left until a public decryption tool for this is available. I know for sure I would NOT PAY these crooks a single Satoshi because: 1) have backups of data 2) more, but older backups 3) bite my shiny metal ass 4) I can wait.

according to things you can read in this topic:
https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/1916199.0
it seems like they have hard coded a couple of bitcoin addresses inside the ransomeware itself which asks for the payment in one of those addresses.

The hack itself won't increase global demand as they didn't receive very many bitcoins, however I think it will indirectly increase demand by bringing attention to bitcoin.

looking at the transaction amounts, each one is different because of price difference, so it is possible that the program asks them to pay exact amount of $300 for example 0.167599BTC and type in the TX ID then it uses a blockexplorer or a node to check if it is paid the exact amount and gives them the key.

the 0.167599 amount was taken from one of the addresses and you can see the amount is already unique.

For requested $300 is easier to buy some new Laptop.

New laptop wont have old files...