But at the time this article was posted, there was no official statement from the US authorities.
Articles are quite vague regarding CME, where some articles were saying that CME didn't even filled anything, and a while later they were waiting for authorative approval, so it's a mixture of faulty information.
Important is that now they officially have set a date for a launch of their futures market, it with a high probability means that they have been approved. If not, then why bother putting up a launch date?
It's a massive player in the financial world that isn't here to fool around with people. Let's be happy with how we have seen this industry move forwards in such a short period of time. It's not likely that we get to experience a similar year again.
I agree with you, and I expect bitcoin futures to be launched by CME in mid December (supposedly 18th December), but I recent read an article on cointelegraph, that claims that the US government could still pass a law that would void the authorization issued by the CFTC. Let's not forget that CFTC is an independent agency, so although they have the authority to regulate and control a specific area or industry, that is too complex to be regulated by executive agencies (in this case CFTC regulates commodity futures and option markets in the United States), they are independent and may not share the view of the President and the Congress.
Not saying this will happen, because they would need a very good reason to interfere with the decision of a independent agency, that is of course specialized in this area. So we will probably see bitcoin futures in the 18th December, and then NASDAQ will probably follow in 2018 as they have already announced.
Link to the article I've mentioned in this post:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-politicians-face-dilemma-on-how-to-handle-bitcoin-futures-trading