I think the net effect of these announcements mean: european investment firms are offering bitcoin and ether ETFs(see: bolded portion of article).
While US markets and the SEC struggled to approve a bitcoin ETF in 2017, europe has gone ahead and done it in 2018. Once again US regulation fails miserably. Europe has approved bitcoin and crypto ETFs. While the united states probably will not approve either in the next 10 years.
This is getting a bit sickening for me being an american and seeing exchanges like bitmex outright ban US residents from trading on leverage. Its almost as if a quiet war is being waged against america and the US economy. Crypto, business and financial opportunities around the world like bitcoin ETFs are being denied to americans. While europeans and foreigners receive much more privilege in terms of support via regulation.
I think every country should be allowed to operate in its own pace because the political, social and economic environment of the countries differs from one and other which makes comparing them difficult. The united States would have its own reason for not going forward as much as we want then to do and I think its largely due to their influence in world economy. They would want to first get a grasp or some form of control on the blockchain (if possible though) before rolling out their own regulations and the moment they do that a whole lot of other countries are following suit.
I don't think its an outright war against US economy rather its fear of the US might. Today you see a lot of ICOs at the planning stage already disenfranchising US citizens not because they know the law that stops then, but rather they want to avoid "trouble" at all cost as they know wherever they are, they can be reached.