I have a better idea for codinghs to compete with gamingcube and onehitgamer:
Why don't you let users buy codes with their points.
The more posts they have, the more points they earn; and if there's more posts, people would think that this sites is larger, this would result in more people registering.
Usually, people think how big a website is by looking at how many users they have and how many threats there are; and they only visit big sites with big numbers.
If you do this, the number of users would explode.
Well, this way you will not make much money initially, but u can make good codes, which gives u an advantage in the long term.
Or you can cheat a little bit by changing the number of users on the bottom of your homepage to a more higher number.
If I see a number of 100,000 users, I would spend more time on this website for sure.
Other websites succeeded by letting users post whatever code they want, including codes from your site. They don't care if the codes were made by you and listed on their sites.
More users mean more donations.
I heard that operating a shout box cost a lot of money, and I don't even have a shout box of my own on gamingcube. I used to have, but now I need more posts in order to get the shout box back.