Does anyone know the number of monthly unique traffic the forum have? I think it's something higher than a million.
The unique traffic is only around 100K-200K, it ever reach one million but in 2017-2018. That's why cryptocurrency projects choose to promote on social medias ads nowadays.
I happened to think that this data had stopped being collected. I think I'll "play" with them a little.
Regarding the point raised by the OP, I also think that this space should not exist again, since there are no longer paid advertisements. Anything placed there could give the impression that they were paying.
Perhaps the news section could have been a little more prominent. With the font a little bigger, for example.