A bitcoin paper wallet is just the Bitcoin private key printed on a piece of paper.

Even though paper is a single distinct medium of holding the private important you can find other providers which have incorporated them into physical coins, including Casascius.

Paper wallets are a type of cold wallet and essentially a bearer instrument - whoever holds them has access to each the Bitcoin private key and as a result the address.

So you could possibly really hand the wallet to a person in lieu of payment - they would must trust which you didn’t have an additional copy of it though and wouldn’t run off and spend the balance ahead of they could.