That’s the end of our coverage of Greek Referendum Day.

But my colleague Helen Davidson is already up and running with a new liveblog, tracking how Asia’s financial markets react to the No landslide.

She already has the latest views from Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at insurance giant Allianz, so don’t miss it:

Thank you for reading and commenting, in such huge numbers. It’s been great to have you with us. Goodnight. GW

Police say about 100-150 anarchist protesters have started throwing firebombs at riot police and setting trash cans on fire in the central Athens neighborhood of Exarcheia, Associated Press reports:

The Greek referendum has gripped Europe, and beyond today.

This map shows how Google users worldwide have been searching for information.

Here’s the Guardian front page story on Sunday’s referendum drama:

It begins:

Greece delivered a landslide no vote to the eurozone’s terms for the country remaining in the single currency on Sunday night, unleashing a seismic political shift that could derail the European project. The verdict confronts the EU’s leadership with one of its most severe ­crises of confidence and leaves Greece facing potential financial collapse and exit from the euro.

In a polarising referendum called by the radical leftist government of Alexis Tsipras at only eight days notice, Greeks voted by more than 60% to 40% in support of the prime minister, spurning the extra austerity demanded mainly by Germany and the International Monetary Fund in return for an extension of bailout funds.

Tsipras said that Greece “has proved that democracy cannot be blackmailed; Greece has made a brave choice and one which will change the debate in Europe.

Live Greek referendum: Alexis Tsipras hails victory for No campaign - live updatesWith most votes counted, Greece has given a resounding No to the proposals from its creditorsRead more

“I understand that votors have not given me a mandate against Europe, but a mandate for a sustainable future.” He warned, though, that there would be “no easy solutions”.

Five years of failed austerity policies in Greece and a total breakdown in trust between the leftwing Syriza alliance and the political leaders of its creditors climaxed in a national vote in which Greeks said no to the spending cuts and tax increases demanded by its lenders....

And here’s the full story:

More photos from Athens....

After a truly sensational day, the Athens capital is calming down as the clocks strike 2am....

The meeting of Greek political leaders is scheduled for 10am Monday in Athens, or 8am UK time.

Monday’s meeting of Greek party political leaders may be dominated by a call for finance minister Yanis Varoufakis to be removed from the country’s negotiating team.

Our correspondent Helena Smith reports:

The head of the centrist Potami party, Stavros Theodorakis, has signalled he will ask for the academic-cum-politician’s immediate withdrawal from the team – citing irreconcilable differences with Greece’s creditors.

This is going to be a big ask. Tsipras is very close (some say enormously dependent) on his finance minister and has stood by him despite growing unease with Varoufakis’ tactics in his own Syriza party. Both men have been enormously vindicated by tonight’s result.

Only a final handful of votes are still to be counted in Greece.

Around 96% of ballot papers have now been processed, with the No side bobbing around the 61.3% mark.

If you’re been watching the crisis closely, you’ll already know that Greece submitted a request for a third bailout last week, and said it would accept some of its creditors demands (but not all)

Newsnight’s Duncan Weldon suggests this could be the basis for a deal:

Our data editor, Alberto Nardelli, sums up the grim choice facing eurozone leaders at their emergency summit on Tuesday:

Alexis Tsipras has told Greece’s president, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, that the country needs ‘a strong national front’ (no, not that sort!) to negotiate a way out of its debt crisis.

At tonight’s meeting, Tsipras told Pavlopoulos:

“We must move forward immediately with negotiations.... a strong national front must be created to seek an immediate solution.”

(via Reuters)

And Pavlopoulous told Tsipras that tonight’s vote does not mean Greece wants to leave the eurozone, local reporters say:

Tonight, we dance.....

European Council president Donald Tusk has confirmed that eurozone leaders will meet on Tuesday night to discuss Greece.

Greece is now in a race against time to reach a deal with creditors before its banking system collapses, say analysts at JP Morgan.

And here’s a handy chart from Barclays (as flagged earlier, they reckon Greece is now likely to leave the eurozone:)

US senator Bernie Sanders has warmly welcomed the referendum result.

“I applaud the people of Greece for saying ‘no’ to more austerity for the the poor, the children, the sick and the elderly.”

“In a world of massive wealth and income inequality Europe must support Greece’s efforts to build an economy which creates more jobs and income, not more unemployment and suffering.”

Sanders, who describes himself as a “democratic socialist”, is running for the Democratic nomination to succeed Barack Obama as president...

Unsurprisingly, the religious development organization Jubilee USA, has applauded tonight’s referendum verdict.

Eric LeCompte, executive director, says:

“Greeks watched a third of their population pushed under the poverty line because of austerity programs over the last 5 years. Today, Greeks voted for debt relief.

And the solution, as IMF reported last week, is debt relief and a long break before repayments kick in:

As LeCompte puts it:

“Austerity in exchange for financing doesn’t work. It’s like treating an injured person with beatings. Unless we establish a global bankruptcy process for countries, we’ll continue to see more situations like Greece around the world.”

No supporters have also celebrated in front of the White Tower in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second city, tonight.

An overwhelmingly youthful crowd thronged Syntagma Square beneath the Greek parliament tonight, writes Daniel Howden.

Among the young revellers were Eleni Konstantinou and her husband Nikos Neoudakis. She has been supporting a family of three on her salary as a secondary school teacher and said the”no” vote was the proudest day of my life.”

“We’ve fought for the left for so many years. Fought the corruption.”

As repeated chants of “no” rang through the square Konstantinou said she expected a better deal on the other side of the referendum landslide.

“I have total faith in Alexis Tsipras, he won’t let us down.”

She said that the demonstrations around Europe in support of the “no” vote had been deeply moving.

“That is solidarity,” she said. “That is Europe.”

A familiar scene in Greece tonight, as queues form at the cash machines:

The CBI, which represents British businesses, has issued a statement on Greece:

CBI Director-General John Cridland says:

“While the UK economy’s direct exposure to Greece is minimal, we are not immune to wider Eurozone risks. We must now encourage all leaders, particularly those of the Troika, to act decisively to agree a deal, providing certainty for Greece and the wider Eurozone.

“Europe’s policymakers should not hesitate to use every tool at their disposal to preserve growth and stability throughout the Eurozone.”

(they’re not called the Troika any more, John! It’s the ‘Institutions’)

Barclays analysts have issued a research note, warning that Greece is likely to leave the euro.

They write:

“While Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande are scheduled to meet tomorrow, we argue that EMU exit now is the most likely scenario….”

The Barclays team also expect the ECB to pull that much needed emergency liquidity funding before July 20. when Greece faces a major debt repayment.”

“The ECB Governing Council will meet on Monday to decide on ELA. We would expect ECB’s GC to shut down ELA at the latest by 20 July.

Assuming that all of the pledged collateral at the ECB is recorded at (close to) par on Greek banks’ balance sheets and that current average haircut on collateral is 50%, then retention of the collateral by the Eurosystem would translate into a more than €30bn loss for the banks.

This alone would wipe out shareholders’ equity. The Greek central bank will eventually need to print its own currency in order to inject new liquidity and capital”.

The European Commission has issued a statement, saying it “takes note of and respects the result of the referendum in Greece”.

It also reveals that Jean-Claude Juncker is now speaking with all eurozone leaders, and other key figures in Europe.

President Juncker is consulting tonight and tomorrow with the democratically elected leaders of the other 18 Eurozone members as well as with the Heads of the EU institutions.

He will have a conference call among the “Euro-Institutionals” (with the President of the Euro Summit, the President of the Euro Group and the President of the European Central Bank) on Monday morning.

He intends to address the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday.

Alexis Tsipras’s team have tweeted the key points from his speech, in English:

News coming in that Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, will meet with the country’s head of state, president Prokopis Pavlopoulos in the next half hour, reports Helena Smith.

He will ask the president to convene an emergency meeting of party leaders tomorrow Monday ahead of a EU summit meeting Greek insiders are confirming will take place Tuesday.

Speculation is rife tonight that the leftist-led government may buttress the Greek negotiating team with members of the political opposition who creditors may find more palatable to deal with in the days ahead.

“But the big question is, he will go [to Brussels] with what plan?” asked Anna Diamantopoulos a former EU commissioner.

“Nobody knows what plan he has.”

My colleague Helena Smith watched Alexis Tsipras speak, and reports:

Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister greeted the result telling the nation in a televised address that that the Greek people had made a very “bold choice”.

“Greek people today gave an answer to [the question of] what Europe we want? And what we want is a Europe of solidarity,” he said adding that he would relaunch negotiations with creditors immediately.

“I want to thank each and every one of you .... I want also to thank the thousands of European citizens who have shown practicably what solidarity means.”

That’s a reference to the thousands who have demonstrated in support of Greece abroad.

Tsipras added:

“We all know that easy solutions don’t exist but just solutions exist”

“Today we are celebrating the victory of democracy, tomorrow the hard work begins,” he said, revealing that he would ask the president of the republic to convene a meeting of the country’s entire political leadership so that he could hear their views about how best to negotiate the country’s way of the crisis.

And here’s some instant reaction:

Today’s vote does not mean Greece is heading out of the eurozone, says Tsipras.

The Greek people did not answer a question on Europe, he insists - we must take that question ‘off the table completely’.

(last week, several European leaders warned that a No vote would mean Greece was voting to leave the eurozone, although there has been some rowing back since)

Slovakia’s finance minister has warned that Grexit is now a realistic scenario.

It appears that the No campaign have crossed the line, and cannot now be caught.

Antonis Samaras, the head of the opposition right-wing New Democracy party, has just resigned - bringing more cheer to the No campaigners.

As Helena Smith reported earlier, Samaras was facing calls to resign once the scale of the Yes campaign’s failure became clear.

The vote counters are heading into the final stretch:

European stock markets and the euro are both expected to suffer substantial falls following today’s referendum:

Over in Berlin, politicians are watching events unfold in Athens and wondering where the eurozone goes next.

German economy minister Sigmar Gabriel told the Tagesspiegel newspaper that this no vote makes it hard to imagine talks on a new bailout programme with Greece.

And he accused Alexis Tsipras of having “torn down the last bridges” which could have led to a compromise:

I’ve taken the quotes from Reuters:

“With the rejection of the rules of the euro zone ...negotiations about a programme worth billions are barely conceivable,....

Tsipras and his government are leading the Greek people on a path of bitter abandonment and hopelessness.”

Two thirds of the ballot papers have now been counted, and the No campaign is still holding firm with over 61% of votes.

Reminder, you can track the count here.

On the other side of the world, the financial markets are waking up to the news from Greece.

The euro has promptly tumbled by 1%, falling from $1.111 to $1.099 against the US dollar.

More and more people are pouring into Syntagma Square to celebrate.

The No celebrations are getting underway in earnest in Athens:

Chants are ringing out across Syntagma Square as No campaigners celebrate their success.

There is optimism that Greece can now, finally, achieve a decisive breakthrough with its creditors, reports Matina Stevis of the Wall Street Journal.

This is the second time in five months that Alexis Tsipras has secured a stunning victory at the ballot box, on the promise of a better future and a break from the past. Despite the struggles since January, his supporters believe he can achieve it.

The referendum results have also been hailed by the opposite end of the political spectrum; France’s anti-immigrant, eurosceptic National Front.

Their leader, Marine Le Pen, says:

“This ‘No’ from the Greek people must pave the way for a healthy new approach,”

“European countries should take advantage of this event together around the negotiating table, take stock of the failure of the euro and austerity, and organise the dissolution of the single currency system, which is needed to get back to real growth, employment and debt reduction.”

(thanks to Reuters for the quotes)

The Green party has hailed tonight’s referendum as a decisive vote against austerity:

Caroline Lucas MP, who represents the British south coast constituency of Brighton Pavilion, says the eurozone must now accept that Greece needs debt relief:

“The Greek people have made a decision which must now be respected. This referendum has seen EU states do their very best to undermine the democratic will of the Greek people but it’s time to draw a line under the past and move onwards.

“History shows us that countries can escape crippling debt in a just way. In 1953, at London Conference, Greece was among the European nations signing a deal which allowed for the cancellation of German debt, to enable the country to grow again after the destruction of the Second World War. Europe needs to come together to offer the Greeks a deal which allows their country to be rebuilt.”

One important element of tonight’s voting is that young people have voted in their droves in favour of no, by around 2 to 1.

Greece’s youth have suffered particularly badly from the last five years, with youth unemployment at record levels.

But a majority of older voters backed the yes side, with their savings and pensions on the line.

Half the ballot papers have now been counted, and no is still holding firm with 61% of votes.

The heads of Germany’s savings bank association has told Reuters that Greece should now leave the eurozone.

And the head of the German exporters association told Reuters he can’t see how Greece stays in the single currency now.

Kathleen Brooks, of Forex.com, also fears for Greece’s banking sector.

She writes:

A win for the no camp also makes negotiations with Greece’s creditors substantially harder, and thus, it cannot be assumed that Greece will get any more money from the EU, ECB or IMF.

· This makes further defaults, including on some large sums owed to the ECB later this month, even more likely.

· Overall, those who thought the chances of Grexit were at 60% last week must now be revising them up to 80%.

Brooks believes that the ECB could take the decision to cut emergency liquidity support this week, meaning the Greek financial system “could collapse in a matter of days”.

Without a functioning banking system, and with no decent alternative coming from the Syriza government, we expect Greece to fall into a deep recession for many years.

Financial analysts are starting to react to the Greek referendum results.

Wolf Piccoli, of Teneo Intelligence, reckons that there is now a 75% chance that Greece will eventually leave the eurozone.

He believes the European Central Bank will not raise the cap on emergency liquidity, even though Greek banks are desperately short of cash.

This will further raise doubts over whether all of Greece’s big commercial banks will be able to survive the coming week; their remaining liquidity buffers are likely to last until Tuesday, at best. Within the ECB, there may even be a push to consider a further increase in the haircut on the collateral accepted in return for ELA access, although Monday may be too early for such a move given that the further course of negotiations is still unclear.

Piccoli also predicts that Greece’s creditors will maintain a hard line:

Once Athens and its lenders resume talks, Tsipras is likely to point to the IMF’s recent debt sustainability analysis [which has effectively once more made the case for debt relief] and tonight’s no vote. But calls to respect the democratic will of the Greek people and offer a better deal will likely be answered by reference to the – in substance very different – democratic will in creditor countries.

Instead, the lenders will likely argue that given the by now worsened economic situation, further efforts will be required to get the country back on track. This may translate into further cuts and/or additional revenue-raising measures to meet primary surplus targets.

And there is even the possibility that Greece’s president, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, resigns to trigger early elections in an attempt to prevent Greece sliding out of the eurozone.

Eurozone finance ministers are not planning on an emergency meeting tomorrow.

One official has told Reuters:

No way. [The ministers] would not know what to discuss.

More than 35% of the ballot papers have now been counted, and no is still firmly ahead with 61% of the votes. The landslide is still on course.

Heads may soon be rolling in the opposition camp.

Demands are growing for Antonis Samaras, the main opposition leader and former prime minister to step down as head of the centre-right New Democracy party following the apparent victory of the no vote, reports Helena Smith.

The former finance minister Dora Bakoyannis has called Samaras demanding that he step down with immediate effect, several media outlets are reporting.

There are signs that some traditional New Democracy party supporters deliberately voted no (when the party had urged Greeks to vote yes) out of protest against Samaras, who has refused to resign.

Investors simply didn’t expect such a decisive win by the no side, so there could be dramatic moves in tomorrow’s financial markets.

Government bond trader Gus Baratta predicts a lively start to trading:

In Athens, one of Greece’s negotiators, Euclid Tsakalotos, is predicting that the government will be able to reach an agreement with creditors very quickly.

Helena Smith is hearing that a mini-cabinet meeting may well be held later tonight – amid talk that a new negotiating team may be assembled by the leftist-led government.

Asked why he believed the government could cut a deal with creditors so soon – when for the past five months talks have been deadlocked – Tsakalotos told STAR TV:

The first thing is that the IMF report [released last week] proves that the debt [load] is not viable and secondly that there is a new popular mandate as it would seem from the apparent result of the referendum.

The London stock market is expected to fall sharply tomorrow morning, as investors brace for further turbulence in the eurozone.

Greece is on track to give a “Big No”:

Nikos Voutsis, Greece’s interior minister and a close ally of Alexis Tsipras, has just spoken to the media.

He says that participation rate is over 50%, meaning the referendum is legally valid (the threshold is 40%). Feedback from the public shows that the public are satisfied with the way the referendum was held.

And Voutsis says that we should get a good official indication of the result by 9pm local time, or 7pm BST. Not long to wait....

Reuters is reporting that the Bank of Greece will ask the European Central Bank for more emergency liquidity assistance for its banks.

Across Greece, people are settling down to await tonight’s results.

Our Southern Europe editor John Hooper has secured a plum spot in a cafe near the Athens parliament, and is tweeting away:

In Thessaloniki, Greece’s northern second city, as the referendum neared its close, voters were still steadily streaming into a primary school polling station in the centre, reports Angelique Chrisafis.

The mood was calm. Any cashpoint queues in the surrounding streets were no longer than three or four people.

Some voters said their minds had been made up from the start, but others said they had struggled to decide how to vote and had felt the pressure of bank closures, capital controls and media campaigns about doomsday scenarios.

Some said the bank controls had made them lean towards a yes vote to try to restore some kind of normality, others said bank controls had tipped them to vote no to express their anger.

Penny Chorafa, 38, runs an architectural practice with her husband and has seen business plummet during the five years of the Greek debt crisis as construction projects stalled. She had made her mind up to vote no from the start.

She said she absolutely wanted Greece to stay in Europe and the eurozone and to her, these were not the core issues of the vote. Instead, she believed voting no was about protesting against austerity and refusing a bad deal from Greece’s creditors.

I voted no to make a statement to the powers-that-be that citizens’ lives have to be taken into account. It’s time for all the European countries to do something about these economic lobbies that dominate.

Chorafa said if the yes vote won, she would be so disappointed she would think about leaving Greece with her two small children and moving abroad.

Antonis Vakalis, 45, who runs two private schools in the city, voted yes. He thought the referendum question was muddled, ridiculous and now out of date:

But I voted yes to say I’m for the euro and for the unity of European countries.

He said his vote didn’t mean that he was in favour of austerity. But amid all the confusion surrounding what the question and the referendum itself meant, he felt it was crucial to register his stance in favour of “Greece’s rightful place inside the European Union”.

First official polls are expected to be released by Greece’s ministry of interior at 9.30pm time (7.30pm BST), Helena Smith reports.

“What we are seeing now are indications,” she adds.

And here’s a reminder of the four opinion polls (not exit polls!) released by the Greek TV stations as the polls shut:

Government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis has warned that Athens needs to reach a deal fast:

Without a deal, it’s hard to see how the European Central Bank can pump more liquidity into the Greek banking sector to allow them to reopen....

Greece’s finance minister has criticised the media over the way his comments to CNBC today have been reported:

Getting a deal in 24 hours is going to be tricky, I’d suggest, as the leaders of France and Germany are holding their own meeting in Paris tomorrow night....

The French government has confirmed that Angela Merkel will visit Paris tomorrow night to discuss the Greek referendum:

Alexis Tsipras has arrived back at his residence in Athens, according to the Kathimerini newspaper:

These opinion polls give the governing radical left Syriza party cause for “restrained optimism” that OXI (no) is going to triumph if only marginally, says our correspondent Helena Smith in Athens.

But, at the risk of banging on, we need to wait for official news from tonight’s counts before we know for sure.

Here’s what government spokesman Nikos Filis told Greek television as the opinion polls were released:

I think this is guidance for the government… to move forward quickly to seek a deal and normalise the banking system.

(via Reuters)

A spokesman for the Syriza party has told Reuters that these opinion polls suggest the government can now “move forward quickly” and seal a deal with its creditors (as Yanis Varoufakis predicted earlier today).

These opinion polls also show that Greece has been split almost down the middle by this referendum, points out journalist Nick Malkoutzis:

And here’s another of the opinion polls suggesting that Greece has voted no today.

But please do remember that ballot papers are only now being counted -- we may have to wait a couple of hours for a firm indication.

All six major Greek TV stations are predicting a victory for the No campaign, says Sky News.

We’re about to hear a lot of noise from Greece, as phone polls conducted today are released.

Important note - these are not full exit polls, according to local media.

Anyone planning to vote fashionably late should consider leaving the house right now

Our correspondent Helena Smith has learned that sources close to the EU commission in Brussels are estimating that the NO vote could be ahead by 8 -10 points.

But Helena says we really don’t know how reliable the figure is as we don’t know what methodology was used to come up with this figure.

She adds:

Based, however, on anecdotal evidence a lot of middle class Greeks, who I spoke to today - and who would normally be firmly European and totally committed to their country’s continued role in the heart of Europe - conveyed how they had simply given up hope.

Younger middle class Greeks, with young children, said they were voting ‘no’ in the hope that at least that way their kids would have some kind of future. None of them seem to have been swayed by the fear factor: that of they voted ‘no’ the country would be kicked out of the euro.

As we flagged earlier, finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has claimed that in the event of a NO vote, a deal can be reached with creditors “within 24 hours.”

Is there something in this, our correspondent Helena Smith wonders?

I have just conducted a two-hour straw poll asking 12 people, across all age groups, if they had voted today and, if so, which way they had gone? A lot were returning from polls stations in the vicinity of central Athens.

Of the 12 , ten said they had voted OXI (No). The two who voted yes owned shops in the district of Plaka beneath the ancient Acropolis.

If the government (as I expect is the case) has also been conducting secret exit polls, it might explain Varoufakis’ remarks.

Only one choice was being recommended at this polling station in Chalkida, Evia today, reports Daniel Howden.

The Greek depression has hit the cement works and shipyards hard here, lending strong support to the ruling radical left coalition, Syriza.

In the island of Evia, a popular retreat from the heat of Athens, there appears to be strong support for the No vote.

Sporting a “No for dignity” badge, Athina Vlahogiorgou says that those calling for yes vote were “spitting in the face of the Greek people.”

A single parent with two children, she is among the large cadre of the long term unemployed. “After the last five years, whoever wants to ignore what’s been done to us has something wrong in their head.”

“This is not about the Drachma or the Euro. This is a class issue.”

Her son, who has just turned 21, has left for London where he works in the kitchen of a fast food restaurant.

“He couldn’t even find a job like that here. What do I have left to lose?”

We’re in to the final hour of voting....

Following Angela Merkel’s statement to the Bundestag last week that a third Greek debt relief package was likely but could only be hammered out after the referendum, Anja Maier writes an interesting analysis of the German chancellor’s position in the left-wing Berlin newspaper TAZ.

“Is Merkel invulnerable?” she asks, arguing:

“At the moment, in the role of the unhysterical albeit worried leader, she appears to be undamaged by the crisis. You can sense that she is quite content with the idea of refusing to hold any more talks with Athens.

Even in these hardcore days it is said that she is sleeping well at night. During the most critical moments of the Ukraine crisis she appeared to be much more worn out than she does now.”

To answer further the question as to how much the Greek crisis might have damaged Merkel, Maier turns to Lutz Meyer, the PR man who managed Merkel’s 2013 election campaign.

Why, he asks, should Merkel come out of this badly? In his view:

“The Euro will remain, Europe will not collapse, and Germany will retain its reputation as the country that advocates tight household budgetary control.”

Neither can Merkel be blamed as the German politician who made the rather controversial decision to let Greece into the Eurozone in the first place. Maybe Greece should never have been allowed in, Meyer remarks:

“But it was the government of (Gerhard) Schröder who decided on that, not Frau Merkel.”

Whatever happens today, Greece faces plenty of political drama in the weeks ahead.

Analysts at Royal Bank of Scotland have outlined the main consequences of today’s vote:

(ELA = emergency funding to Greek banks, which is currently capped at €89bn).

According to respected Swiss paper, Neue Zürcher am Sonntag Zeitung, Greece is planning a tax amnesty for all Greeks who own Swiss bank accounts.

The country, writes the paper, is so desperate for money to fill its coffers that it has appealed to tax evaders to come forward and they will escape prosecution if they pay 21% on their undeclared income. The paper refers to “well informed circles”.

Estimates as to how much untaxed Greek money is lying in Swiss bank accounts vary widely, ranging says the NZZ, from between €2bn to €200bn. The amnesty could therefore prove to be a good move - if tax evaders react to the offer.

Back in April, Yanis Varoufakis pledged to introduce legislation to encourage Greeks to reveal undeclared assets in Switzerland.

Sky News’s economics editor, Ed Conway, has treked to the Athens suburb of Holargos where Greece’s central bank owns a printing press:

That’s where the drachma was printed, before Greece joined the euro, and in theory it could produce notes again. Although, as explained on Bloomberg, creating a new currency usually takes months.

The events in Greece are dominating the thoughts of many bankers this weekend.

Barclays has a team of foreign exchange experts arriving at 5pm. Its research, sales and trading staff have been monitoring the Greek referendum all weekend.

The main Asian markets will all be trading by 2.30am London time so traders will getting ready to put through trades for clients. Analysts will need to be ready to give advice to clients on the implications of the referendum.

More photos from Greece today, via our GuardianWitness assignment:

The BBC’s Robert Peston reports that the Greek government will hold talks with its central bank, and the country’s major commercial banks, tonight to discuss the situation.

Sky News’s Emily Purser reports that the €60 per day cap on ATM withdrawals is now effectively down to €50, because €20 notes are in such short supply.

The European Central Bank is due to meet on Monday to discuss Greece, a week after capping the emergency funding it provides to its banks (which is now clearly running out).

There are just two hours to go until the polls close across Greece.

We may then get polling data, indicating how Greeks have voted on this momentous day.

However, it appears these will be ‘phone polls’, asking people how they voted - rather than surveys taken outside the polling stations.

So we may have to wait a couple of hours until actual data come in. And if it’s a tight race, the result won’t come until after midnight in Greece (and probably the UK too)

The Bild tabloid is reporting on how Europe’s bankers are hunkering down for a long night.

Deutsche Bank, for one, is planning a telephone conference for its top bankers at 10pm local time, in order to advise on the results of the referendum and what a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ will mean for international creditors.

Other big banks are reportedly taking similar action.

Gérard Araud, France’s ambassador to the United States, has tweeted that Paris will do everything it can to avoid Grexit:

Germany’s defence minister Ursula von der Leyen has delivered a swift rebuke to Yanis Varoufakis’s claim yesterday that the Greeks had been terrorised by their creditors.

She told the Passauer Neuen Presse:

“The remark by Varoufakis is a mockery to everyone that suffers from (the effects) of terrorism.”

The mayor of Thessaloniki, Greece’s second city, believes that Alexis Tsipras and the leaders of the other main political parties should “head to Brussels together” on Monday - regardless of whether Greece votes Yes or No.

Yiannis Boutaris, who was shortlisted for World Mayor 2014, said in a statement:

“Whatever the result of the referendum, the prime minister and the politicalleaders must understand that they must get together and go to Brussels to give asign of credibility,”

Greece’s finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, continues to insist that Athens can reach an agreement with its lenders quickly, if the country votes no today.

As well as ticking that ballot paper, Greeks have been able to express their preferences at the local cake shop:

The No campaign have been using images of Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, and his Dutch counterpart Jeroen Dijsselbloem, to encourage people to tick the OXI box.

(Dijsselbloem has chaired the eurogroup meetings where Greece battled with its creditors so often, and with little success, this year)

Germany’s Spiegel newspaper has the inside line of how Angela Merkel reacted last weekend to the news that Alexis Tsipras had called today’s referendum,

It says an exasperated Merkel told the inner circle of her CDU party that his politics were “hard and ideological” and that he was “driving his country to the wall, with open eyes”.

Spiegel says that the quotes have been confirmed by several participants of the meeting at the Konrad Adenauer House in Berlin, last Monday. It added she was flabbergasted that he could “play roulette with an entire country”.

Spiegel’s front page cover has Merkel sitting on the rubble of a collapsed Greece, with the headline “Die Trummerfrau” - a reference to the ‘rubble ladies’ who cleared up bombed-out Berlin after the war, and the declaration:

“If the Euro collapses, so too will Merkel’s chancellorship”.

Remember, you can share your experiences of today’s referendum through GuardianWitness, as this reader already has:

Greek voting stations close at 5pm BST with the first exit poll expected shortly after. If the knife-edge vote indicated by the most recent opinion polls hold true, it will be the early hours of Monday before the actual result is known.

Four things the Greek referendum will not change – economists at Société Générale:

First, in Greece - Yes or No - it will take time to gain clarity on the situation. Second, much political damage has already been done in the euro area; and more could be done. Third (and perhaps first in order of importance), the euro area needs urgently to accelerate structural reform; both the national and European level.

While our baseline scenario is that contagion from Greece will remain modest thanks to better tools, there is a negative risk scenario that could influence policy decisions further afield and notably slow Fed rate hikes.

On our list of points that the referendum will not change, however, is (fourth) the efforts by Chinese authorities to stem the decline in its equity markets. New measures announced by the Chinese authorities (IPO suspension and a new stabilisation fund) will be put to the test next week, whatever the Greeks vote.

The BBC is working hard to provide us with coverage on Greece:

Much ado here over other remarks the European parliament’s president Martin Schulz has also made today, says Helena Smith in Athens.

Martin’s Schulz’s prediction that Greece will be forced to mint a new currency in the event of a ‘no’ vote has been causing waves. Several leading commentators have denounced it as shameful intervention in today’s democratic process.

“Deplorable” wrote Nikos Hatzinikolaou whose (usual) tact has helped make him Greece’s most famous journalist.

The leading Greek daily Ta Nea reports today that the European parliament president made the comments last Thursday but “despite that they were made public on Sunday.”

Daniel Howden reports from central Greece again.

40 year old mother of two, Aristea, sitting on the step of the Devernohoria village school waiting for the lunch break to end at the poll station, admits that she hasn’t decided how she will vote.

“This referendum should never have happened. As Greeks we’ve reached the point where we need to get serious.”

She’s worried for her job in a company that exports first aid equipment. But she’s more concerned that her children will grow up in a country outside the EU.

“Our politicians are the worst of us. We don’t have leaders.”

“This is our fault as Greeks and the Europeans fault as well. Everyone is to blame. We should never have got here.”

She said that she would vote regardless of her reservations: “I have always voted. If you don’t vote you’re leaving it to someone else to decide.”

Some people suggest the initial turnout for the referendum is low, despite all the media hype.

At least half a million Greeks are unable to cast their vote because they live abroad, unless they have travelled back to their home country (the place where they are registered to vote).

A young Guardian reader voting for the first time says on GuardianWitness:

I’m 18, a first-time voter. Our voting station was quiet, but friends are texting me that in some other neighborhoods organised groups of Syriza youths are booing politicians and harassing voters. This is sad, in my circle of friends we are split in half, like the rest of Greece, but decided when it all started that we won’t let it affect our friendships.

Voting is such a scary thing! You have to face the fact that your decision can have a negative impact on your country.”

Here are six questions (and answers) about what happens next, after the dust from the referendum settles. What happens in the event of a yes, no or ‘light no’ vote? asks Helena Smith, our correspondent in Athens.

Former LibDem parliamentary candidate George Cunningham is in Greece.

Interesting series of tweets from Greek polling stations.

Daniel Howden has spoken to a ‘Yes’ voter. Yannis Raptodimos, 29, who lives in Dervenohoria, central Greece, and works in a local munitions factory, warns of catastrophe if the drachma is reintroduced.

Those who have money in the bank will vote Yes. Those with loans have been told that if they vote No they won’t have to repay them.

This is not right. If you don’t repay loans the banks will fold. With the Drachma we’ll have catastrophe.

Here are some more voices from Greece.

John Hooper, the Guardian’s southern Europe editor, writes:

First came Donald Tusk, the representative of the EU’s member governments, who said that a ‘No’ vote was “not ... about beingin the euro zone or not”. Then we had Wolfgang Schäuble telling the Greeks that the outcome of the referendum would merely decide whether their country kept the euro or would be “temporarily without it”. And now, today, we get a member of the ECB’s executive board, Benoît Cœuré appearing to say that, no matter which way the vote goes, “We will find the necessary instruments”.

Odd. No?

All three gentlemen must surely understand that these remarks favour a ‘No’ vote. A lot of people those of us in the Guardian team here have spoken to in recent days have been in an agony of indecision: dare they vote for rejection of the terms if, as the ‘Yes’ camp has argued, it will in effect mean voting for Grexit? These comments will comfort and encourage them to put a cross by the OXI (Ochi).

Is this about regime change? Are Greece’s creditors trying to engineer the downfall of their tormentor, Alexis Tsipras? It seems unlikely: a ‘Yes’ vote would surely see him out of office much more swiftly.

Or are they trying instead to create the conditions for Grexit? And reassure the Greeks that they will make it as painless as they possibly can?

Commentators have warned that the vote is a “complicated mess”. Mike Bird writes on Business Insider:

[The vote] asks Greeks to give a single vote on two official bailout deal documents that few will have read, and even fewer will have understood. It’s not even clear that the deal being voted on is still on offer.

Polls have been split pretty much straight down the middle. Nobody is sure who will win today.

The opposition to the bailout deal, including the government, argue that a “No” vote against the document will empower them in negotiations. Those in favour of the deal say the referendum is really a choice between the euro and Greece leaving the eurozone (a so-called Grexit).

Postcards from the edge in Athens where toll roads have been declared free. Toll booth operators in cheerful blue polo shirts sit staring into the distance with nothing to do, waving the traffic through, reports Daniel Howden.

Polling stations in Greece are open until 7pm local time (5pm BST), but there are suggestions that they could stay open later if they run short of envelopes.

Warning that potentially explosive moments lay ahead, the head of Greece’s orthodox communist party, KKE, Dimitris Koutsombas also called for unity, reports Helena Smith.

“The workers’ class, with unity and alliance, must face whatever development, whether these lead to a new agreement, a guillotine essentially with tough measures or whether they lead to developments outside the euro, a double currency with our people being bankrupt.”

The KKE has also urged supporters to reject creditors proposed reforms saying acceptance would lead to further pauperisation of Greeks.

Our correspondent in Athens, Helena Smith reports:

By 10.30am the country’s entire political leadership had cast ballots. Voting in the central Athens district of Kypseli, prime minister Alexis Tsipras called the referendum a “day of celebration” for the crisis-hit country.

Addressing a crush of reporters, amid loud cries of NO from supporters, Tsipras lashed out at the war of propaganda that had been waged in the week since he called had called the vote.

“Democracy has defeated fear. The determination of the people will beat the propaganda of fear,” said the radical leftist who had openly campaigned for Greeks to vote no. “The people are sending a message. A government can be ignored but no one can ignore the desire of an entire people to take life in its hands. “

Earlier, Greece’s head of state, president Prokopis Pavlopoulos emphasised the need for national unity. The referendum, the second to take place in more than 40 years, comes amid escalating signs of ethnic division and fears of civil strife.

“Irrespective of the result, we have to traverse what will be a difficult tomorrow with unity,” Pavlopoulos told reporters. “That is what our forefathers did. That is what we are going to do. We will go forward, all together.”

Some 108,371 Greeks who have just turned 18 will vote for the first time, according to authorities. Of that number 55,206 are men and 53,165 women. Greek youth, very badly hit by unemployment, are expected in the main to vote no, pollsters say.

Good morning.

About 10 million Greeks are going to the polls on Sunday, to vote in a referendum that poses the biggest challenge to the euro since its adoption in 1999. We will bring you the latest news and developments throughout the day.

Prime minister Alexis Tsipras has urged Greeks to vote ‘Ochi’ or ‘No’ on whether to accept the bailout package drawn up with creditors, in the hope of securing a better deal.