European markets falls sharply after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a military operation in Ukraine. In the opening minutes only of trade the FTSE 100 fell 2.5%, following the French CAC 40 dropped 4% and Germany's Dax was 4% lower.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index decreased by 3%. Korea's Kospi lowered by 2.6%. Japan's Nikkei 225 lost nearly 2%. China's Shanghai Composite got lower to 1.7%.
However, early today bitcoin prices fell below $35,000. Bitcoin was trading at $34,969 as of 1:22 a.m. but now it decline to more than 8% compared to a day earlier. Bitcoin is the world's most valuable cryptocurrency but now it fell below $40,000 over the weekend and still continuing to decline after the Ukraine crisis. Crypto Bitcoin was last in November was trading at $68,990 and now it gets to half of the prices.
Not only this other currencies like Ethereum tumbled fell more than 12%, and dogecoin was down more than 14% early in this morning. Ethereum and dogecoin were last tradings at $2,349 and 10 cents.
Early this morning Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a military operation in Ukraine on Thursday with explosions heard across the country and its foreign minister warning a "full-scale invasion" was underway. In the following hours, blasts were heard at several major cities across the eastern European country, and news agency Reuters reported missile strikes at Ukrainian military installations in the capital Kyiv. The military said that it shot down five Russian planes and one military helicopter was shot down in the Luhansk region. Moments later, Russia officially accepted that it destroyed Ukrainian airbases and air defenses.