The gold standard over the past 100 years was mostly a government controlled gold standard, where paper money's tenuous link to gold was slowly eroded until it was completely eliminated (Nixon severed the final ties to gold in the US in 1971). If governments had never mettled with money, I suspect the world would already have a well-functioning monetary system (most likely gold).

I'm a big cryptocurrency fan, but as you mention Bitcoin has recently had issues with unconfirmed transaction delays. Without going into the details (don't know how familiar you are with the politics of Bitcoin), I think this will ultimately get resolved, and the transaction delay / high transaction costs / full blocks are ultimately what lead to Bitcoin forking into Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash.

As for Bitcoin lacking a stable value, that's also an issue, but if it actually has a shot at replacing fiat currencies worldwide (and I think it does), its value will increase massively but ultimately it will plateau and have a relatively stable value (I suspect this would've happened with gold already if governments hadn't mettled with it)!