There is a waiting time before you can open a crate and the more valuable the crate the longer the waiting time before they open. The game offers you the option of instantly unlocking it in exchange for gold but this is something you should avoid doing as you could end up broke very quickly. It is much better to be patient and just wait for the crates to open naturally themselves when their timers have completed.
Basically save your gold and visit the game evey couple of hours in order to check out timers, it is more beneficial to use your gold on the crates that are available in the Mighty Battles game store as they yield more cards and cash.