Except when people want to believe something or have fear (of losing mass amounts of money) of something, they tend to act irrationally. He wouldn't be able to

Except when people want to believe something or have fear (of losing mass amounts of money) of something, they tend to act irrationally. He wouldn't be able to convince myself of his identity without one of his private keys, but there are thousands of people who would have latched on, and then once those people start confirming the story it only convinces more people and so on, in a snowball effect.