The Artificial Intelligence Act — a proposed law put forward by the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU — will be the “world’s most restrictive regulation of AI,” according to the center.

It is the world's only regulation of AI, as far as I know, so being the most restrictive is pretty easy to say.

Furthermore the "thinktank" is more of a propaganda office, check what they write on their site:

With staff in Washington, DC and Brussels, the Center formulates and promotes pragmatic public policies designed to maximize the benefits of data-driven innovation in the public and private sectors. It educates policymakers and the public about the opportunities and challenges associated with data, as well as technology trends such as open data, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things.

When you have your offices close to centres of government, it's not to save on cab rides, but to lobby intensely. I think they overestimate said costs for business, because when you keep control over your technology, as in quality control, it saves you money in the end by not having to pay any fines or losing lawsuits. I think the lobby-tank doesn't want the AI-industry to be controlled and give them a free reign like Google, Facebook or Apple gave themselves (and are paying for that, looking at quite some lawsuits that they have encountered during their excistence and the more they will encounter if they keep on going with their hegemonies).

The article can be summarized to the following: we do not care about people's rights, but really care about making shitloads of cash with out any overseer or government control.

Not all wallets are however expected to be affected by the possible rule. The new measure might just only extend to custodial wallet providers such as exchanges and web wallets. Non-custodial and official wallets utilized by most crypto projects will not be affected.

So, in a sense, they're after the people who use the big exchanges and webwallets, which are not the big players at all. The little people are again subject and target, because money-laundering and criminal payments are a small fraction of the total of trades. This means, again, that the little people will have no way of saving or investing for their pensions or whatever they wish to do, because the next step is taxation. Also: this is thanks to the old-school banks and being scared to lose.

Tax-evasion and money-laundering happens most in fiat currencies, but then again, they're not after that, because they would hurt themselves and their coffers in a big way. What a sad bunch of assholes.