I know how to create a paper wallet and send bitcoin to it from Coinbase. If I want to spend the paper wallet bitcoin do I just give the merchant my public key? How does the network know I hold the private key from just that private key info? If I want to send the bitcoin to someone do I have to download the entire bitcoin protocol to do that? Is there a smaller version I can use to just send bitcoin? Thanks for your help.
For receive the funds you can just give the address of your paper wallet, you must keep safe your private key if anyone else obtains the private key of your wallet, they can withdraw your funds because the other part of your bitcoin wallet is the private key. It is this that enables you to send bitcoins to other people. sorry if i was wrong that's only what i know about paper wallet 