what is float?

[Dakou]

when I check the details of my skins there's something called float and it's a bunch of numbers... what does it mean?

[Neptunium]

float is the numerical value of the wear of a skin. It has a range (with some exceptions) from 0 to 1, where 0 is an absolutely clean picture, and 1 is the most shabby. The closer the value is to 0, the cleaner and sharper the image (or it is brighter if the skin does not erase when the quality deteriorates).

[Irene ❤]

0 = very new
1 = very scarred

It's boring to have only 0 or 1, hence valve add 16 more digits.
In computer terms, it's called a float number.

If my skin is 1, or 0.9487210783, it is very scarred.
The other player has 0.99999000091, therefore his skin is more scarred than mine.

With the float system in place, players crave to find the rare skin with the lowest or highest float.

[ab]

it's the skins wear

[CatCinnaroll]

Float (from my personal understanding) is simply the skin's wear level in numbers, it ranges from 0.0000000 to 1.0000000, higher float = skin is more scratched off (the way the skin wears off depends on what finish it has, but that's more complicated stuff)