What are blessings for?

[Aldebaran]

500 blessings to whoever can best tell me what the purpose of blessings are. I've searched this site and also used google to find out but only came up with this page, which after you scroll down to the "blessings" section, doesn't give any information about it.

What is their purpose, other than to show gratitude toward someone by exchanging them?

 

[country woman]

they are for giving out to people who do nice things for you or helps you in some way

 

[Aldebaran]

they are for giving out to people who do nice things for you or helps you in some way

And then what do THEY do with them? I mean, is it like some kind of money system that allows you to do different things, such as increase the size of your avatar (I've noticed some are larger than others), or get access to different parts of the forum, or get moderator privileges?